THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


SELECTIONS    FROM    BRIERLEY 


SELECTIONS  FROM 
BRIERLEY 


("J.  B."  OF  "THE   CHRISTIAN  WORLD") 


BOSTON:    THE   PILGRIM   PRESS 

LONDON :  JAMES  CLARKE  &  CO 

1914 


CONTENTS 

VITAL   QUESTIONS 

Our  Doctrine  of  God— Incarnation— What  is  Man  ? — 
Christianity  the  Eternal  Rehgion— What  is  Sin  ?— 
Salvation  —  Unworldliness  —  The  Sacred  and  the 
Secular— What  is  Life?— What  is  Death?— What  is 
Eternity? PP-  11—32 


THE  INNER  LIFE 

Religious  Experience  —  Prayer  —  The  Progress  of  the 
Soul — Religious  Temperaments — ^The  Inner  Disciphne 
— Beneath  the  Surface — Man's  Relation  to  God — On 
Divine  Leading— The  Truest  Rest— The  Athletics  of 
the  Soul — The  Upward  Way — Special  Providences — 
On  the  Sick  Bed— The  Atmosphere  of  the  Soul- 
Vicarious  Consecration — ^The  Inner  Secret— The  Inner 
Factor pp.  35—66 


THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE 

True  Liberty — The  Reformation  of  Character — True  Wealth 
— The  True  Society — The  Church  as  a  Social  Force — 
The  EngUsh  Sunday — The  Social  Pressure— True 
Social  Intercourse — The  Problem  of  the  City — ^The 
Church  and  the  Criminal — Unworldly  Men 

pp.  69—87 


1 7;^22QA 


CONTENTS 

THOUGHTS  ON   LIFE 

Life's  Appeal — Life's  Products — Life  as  an  Accumulator — 
Life  as  a  Mixture — ^The  Art  of  Letting-go — ^The 
Commonplace  —  Adjustments  —  Elect  Spots  —  Events 
as  Teachers — ^The  Present  and  the  Past — ^The  Philo- 
sophy of  Lowliness — Reaching  the  Goal — Possessing 
Ourselves — Negative  Blessings — "  Narrowness  "  and 
"  Breadth  " — ^The  Art  of  Keeping  Young — After 
Middle  Age — Looking    Backward — Life's  Retrospect 

pp.  91 — 126 

SOME  ETHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

The  Ultimate  Standard  —  The  Morally  Undefined  — 
Character  and  Reputation — A  New  Doctrine  of 
Equality — Money  and  Rehgion — Conscience — Doctrine 
versus  Life — A  New  Warfare — The  Ethic  of  the 
Intellect — Progress  by  Self-repression — ^The  Supre- 
macy of  Personality  —  The  Philosophy  of  the 
Incomplete — Good  versus  Good  .      pp.  129 — 150 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  HAPPINESS 

The  World's  Happiness — The  Joy  of  Living — ^The  Discipline 
of  Joy — The  Pleasures  of  Anticipation — Enjoyment  as 
a  Virtue — Religion  and  Humour — Religion  and  Amuse- 
ment— Sunshine  in  the  Soul — Friendship — ^The  Ethic 
of  Fatigue — Holidays        .         .         .      pp.  153 — 173 


LIFE'S   MYSTERIES 

Religion  and  Mystery — The  Tragic  in  Life — Religion  and 
Catastrophe — Is  God  Indifferent  ? — The  Mystery  of 
the  Gospel — In  Praise  of  Darkness — The  Meaning  of 
SoUtude — Society  and  Solitude — The  World  Invisible 
— The  Doctrine  of  Pause — Personal  Survivals — Illusion 
as  a  Training  Force  ....      pp.  177 — 198 

vi 


CONTENTS 


SPIRITUAL  SIDELIGHTS 

What  is  it  to  be  Spiritual  ? — ^The  Note  of  the  Spiritual — 
The  Spiritual  Sense — Spiritual  Amalgams — Can  we 
repeat  Pentecost? — ^The  Christ  of  To-day — Spiritual 
Gain  and  Loss — A  New  Incarnation  of  Christ — Moral 
and  Spiritual  Spring  Cleaning — Spiritual  Emancipation 
— Moral  Superiorities — Idle  Piety — Faith  as  a  Force — 
Religion  :  Pubhc  and  Private  —  Spiritual  Under- 
currents— Lay  Religion — Leading  and  Following 

pp.  201 — 230 

RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

The  Rehgion  of  Experience — The  Supreme  Human  Achieve- 
ment— ^The  Coming  Unity — Religion  and  the  Child — • 
Nature's  Penalties — Self-Acceptance — Not  Debt  but 
Grace — ^The  Surprise  Faculty — Woman's  Influence  in 
ReUgion — Pulpit  Silences — New  Testament  Religion — 
The  Appeal  to  Fear  .         .         '      PP-  233 — 254 

SCIENCE,  ART  AND   RELIGION 

Science  and  the  Creeds — Science  as  Interpreter  of  Christ — 
Medicine  and  Rehgion — ^The  Message  of  the  Stars — 
Heredity  and  Character — Nature  as  Preacher — Our 
Inheritance  in  the  Invisible — Religion  and  Art — 
Recognition  of  the  Beautiful      .         .      pp.  257 — 275 


Vll 


VITAL   QUESTIONS 


VITAL  QUESTIONS 

OUR    DOCTRINE   OF   GOD 

Were  there  no  man  there  would  be  no  God.  The 
statement  may  seem  startHng  enough,  but  it  is  really, 
on  this  theme,  the  first  thing  we  have  to  learn.  Do  not 
let  it  be  misunderstood.  The  Ineffable  Reality  that  is 
in  and  behind  the  Visible  has  been  there  from  all  eter- 
nity. But  God,  to  us  as  human  beings,  is  just  as  much 
as  we  know  and  can  conceive  of  that  Reality.  Our 
manhood  is  our  measure  of  Godhead.  Man's  incessant 
cry  has  been  for  Divine  revelation.  In  ruder  times  he 
wanted  it  hot  and  hot,  a  vision  in  flaming  heavens,  or 
signs  and  wonders  on  the  earth.  Later,  the  aspiration, 
unanswered,  apparently,  has  turned  to  a  tormenting 
doubt.  It  has  been  his  astonishment  and  despair  that 
the  heavens 

"  make  no  disclosure 
And  the  earth  keeps  up  her  terrible  composure." 

But  in  this  despair  man  is  forgetting  one  thing.  It 
is  that  there  is  Divine  revelation,  actually  and  inces- 
santly going  on,  and  that  he  is  the  organ  of  it.  His  own 
voice  has  in  it  the  accent  of  eternity,  and  the  more 
according  to  his  height  of  soul. 

When  we  speak  of  God  as  Father — the  great  word  of 
Jesus  concerning  Him — we  come  to  the  element  of 
personality.     It  is  indeed  along  all  the  sides  of  our 

II 


Selections  from  Brierley 

personality  that  we  touch  God  and  are  made  conscious 
of  His  presence.  The  intellect  is  our  poorest  proof  of 
Him.  It  is  when  we  love,  suffer,  labour,  serve,  forgive, 
that  we  are  surest  of  God. 

When  we  say  that  without  man  there  were,  for  us,  no 
God,  we  are  simply  putting  in  another  way  the  formula 
that  God's  revelation  to  us  is  in  us.  And  the  revelation 
is  continuous.  Calvin's  great  word,  "  Pie  hoc  potest 
did  Demn  esse  Naturam  "  ("  One  may  say  with  rever- 
ence that  God  is  Nature  "),  has  to  be  taken  with  a 
reservation  which  he  himself  held.  For  God  is  Nature, 
and  more.  Evolution,  if  it  means  anything,  means  a 
progression.  Is  not  the  greatest  thing  we  are  reach- 
ing to-day  this,  that  out  of  evolution  is  emerging  a 
doctrine  of  God  which  sees  Him  as  the  perfect  worker 
behind  a  perfecting  Universe,  a  Universe  which,  under 
His  hand,  is  becoming  the  ever  truer,  the  ever  more 
adequate  expression  of  Himself  ? 

INCARNATION 

It  is  the  wonder  of  Jesus  that  He  is  being  perpetually 
reborn.  Each  generation  incarnates  Him  anew,  clothes 
Him  in  the  flesh  and  blood  of  its  own  life  and  thought. 
As  we  glance  back  through  the  ages  we  see  a  procession 
of  Christ-figures  successively  filling  the  scene,  each 
different  from  the  others,  yet  always  with  a  mystic 
likeness  that  tells  us  it  is  He.  When  we  find  Christi- 
anity putting  in  its  forefront  a  doctrine  of  Incarnation, 
and  proclaiming  the  historical  Jesus  as  Divine,  we  find 
ourselves  in  presence,  not  of  a  suddenly  launched, 
isolated  claim,  but  of  a  continuity,  both  of  idea  and  of 
experience,  which  must  command  our  attention. 

12 


Vital  Questions 

What,  then,  is  the  Christian  Incarnation  ?     It  is,  as 
the  New  Testament  puts  it,  "  God  manifest  in  jflesh." 
And  not  the  less  so  that  the  manifestation  is  under 
strictly  human  conditions.     In  Jesus,  "  our  divinest 
symbol,"  humanity  enlarged  its  boundaries  to  take  in 
Divinity.     The  "  new  originations,"  of  which  modern 
science  speaks,   found  here  their  sublimest  example. 
We  have  only  to  read  the  Life  depicted  in  the  Gospels 
to  realise  how,  entering  into  all  the  human  conditions, 
it  at  every  point  transcended  them  ;   how  it  lifted  the 
experiences  and  possibilities  of  living  up  to  a  new  scale  ; 
how  it  compels  us  to  say  with  Origen  that  "  Jesus  was 
united  to  God  in  the  most  essential  manner  "  ;    with 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  that  "  God  in  Him  was  not 
simply  immanent,  but  that  the  spirit  of  Jesus  so  per- 
fectly appropriated  the  Divine  as  to  become  one  with 
it  "  ;   with  Fichte,  that  "  Jesus  is  in  a  wholly  peculiar 
manner  the  only-begotten  and  first-born  Son  of  God  "  ; 
and  with  Ritschl,  that  He  represents  to  us  "  the  religious 
'    value  of  God."     We  do  not  in  the  spiritual  evolution 
know  where  man  ends  and  God  begins.     But  as  we 
study  Jesus  in  His  life  and  death,  and  in  the  power  of 
His  Resurrection,  what  we  do  know  is  that  here  God 
and  man  are  manifestly  one. 

WHAT  IS  MAN  ? 

The  most  conspicuous  service  of  science  has  been 
to  throw  into  an  intenser  relief  the  contrarieties  of  our 
existence.  It  has  allied  us,  in  a  way  our  fathers  never 
dreamed  of,  to  the  animal  kingdom.  Here  indeed  it 
offers  nothing  to  boast  of.  On  this,  the  material  side, 
Nature  puts  us  on  a  level  with  her  flies  and  beetles. 

13 


Selections  from  Brierley 

On  occasion  she  destroys  us  by  the  same  methods  and 
with  the  same  indifference.  In  an  earthquake  our 
value,  our  consequence  to  the  cosmos,  appears  to  be 
that  of  an  anthill.  If  life  had  no  other  side  than  this 
visible  one  our  doctrine  of  man  would  be  indeed  a 
doctrine  of  despair  ;  our  philosophy  "  to  eat  and  drink, 
since  to-morrow  we  die." 

But  the  facts  of  life  which  point  to  such  a  conclusion 
are  met  by  another  set,  not  less  certain,  far  more  august, 
which  look  in  an  opposite  direction.  These  are  the 
facts  of  the  spirit  and  of  the  spiritual  world.  The  central 
thing  about  man  is  not  that  he  can  be  crushed  by  earth- 
quakes or  smothered  by  volcanoes.  It  is  that  he  is  a 
spirit,  a  thinker.  Resting,  as  to  one  side  of  his  being, 
on  natural  laws  that  treat  him  with  scant  respect,  he 
founds  himself  on  another  set  whose  opeiation  and 
significance  are  very  different.  One  of  these,  a  law 
which  seems  to  dominate  all  others,  is  the  law  of  pro- 
gress. Against  that  man  is  mortal  put  this,  that  he  is 
progressive.  The  individual  dies,  but  the  race  moves 
forward.  It  is  at  this  point  that  science  and  philosophy 
meet  with  a  concordant  message  for  theology.  They 
remove  the  old  limits  from  humanity — at  both 
its  ends. 

The  scientific  view  of  man  as  constantly  evolving, 
as  moving  from  lower  to  higher,  has,  on  both  its  sides, 
vital  consequence  for  theology.  On  the  lower  side 
it  touches  its  doctrine  of  sin,  on  the  upper  its  doctrine 
of  Christ.  As  to  the  first,  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall, 
which  belongs  to  Christian  teaching,  is  a  doctrine  of 
science  and  philosophy  as  well  as  of  the  Bible.  The 
facts  of  evolution  join  with  the  Genesis  story  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  with  the  Pauhne  argument  of  the 

14 


Vital  Questions 

New  in  affirming  a  Fall,  a  breach  of  the  earlier  ethical 
unity,  as  coming  at  the  beginning  of  our  spiritual  history. 
When  we  ask  "  What  is  man  ?  "  we  have  to  reaffirm 
with  a  new  emphasis  our  philosophy/  of  Becoming. 
Man  is  not  simply  what  he  is,  but  all  he  may  yet  be. 
And  the  prospect  along  these  upper  ranges  of  his 
nature  opens  plainly  upon  infinit3^  What  will  be  the 
new  departure  ?  After  humanising  comes  Divinising. 
It  is  at  this  point  that  Christianity  comes,  with  such 
impressive  effect,  into  the  story.  Humanity,  at  its 
topmost  level,  opens  itself  to  take  in  Christ.  Schleier- 
macher,  the  noble-hearted  thinker  who  combined  in 
himself  almost  in  its  perfection  the  philosophic  temper 
with  the  true  Christian  devotion,  has  put  in  unsur- 
passable language  the  truth  we  have  been  here  striving 
to  express  :  "  Christ's  work  is  a  completion  of  the 
creation  of  human  nature.  In  this  sense  of  expressing 
the  perfect  consciousness  of  God,  Jesus  is  Divine.  He 
is  not  merety  exemplary  ;  He  is  archetypal  {urhildlich) . 
He  is  the  manifestation  in  a  definite  Person  of  an 
eternal  Act — the  completion  for  which  all  that  went 
before  was  preparation."  Even  a  hasty  glance  will 
be  enough  to  show  how  sure  are  the  grounds  for  faith. 
The  researches  of  science,  the  verdicts  of  criticism, 
properly  considered,  serve  only  to  throw  into  greater 
clearness  the  inimitable  expanse  of  man's  spiritual 
inheritance,  the  deep  foundations  of  his  immortal  hope. 

CHRISTIANITY  THE  ETERNAL  RELIGION 

The  Church,  in  its  first  age,  conquered  not  so  much 
by  teaching  as  by  giving.  The  Christian  love  offered 
itself  everywhere  without  expectation  of  return.     It 

15 


Selections  from  Brierley 

lent  itself  "  hoping  for  nothing  again."  As  that  early 
Christian,  the  unknown  writer  of  the  Epistle  to 
Diognetiis,  puts  it  :  "  They  love  all  men  and  are 
persecuted  by  all  ;  they  are  poor  and  make  many  rich  ; 
they  lack  all  things  and  abound  in  all."  The  trans- 
figuring power  of  this  new  spirit  turned  dungeons  into 
palaces.  Read  the  diary  of  that  lovely  soul,  Perpetua, 
the  young  mother  delivered  at  Carthage  to  the  wild 
beasts  for  her  faith.  She  writes  :  "  The  gaol  became 
to  me  suddenly  hke  a  palace,  so  that  I  liked  to  be  there 
better  than  anywhere  else."  The  disciples  felt,  as 
Justin  Martyr  has  it,  that  nothing  that  happened  to 
them  could  be  an  evil  so  long  as  their  Lord  was  with 
them. 

And  that  is  Christianity,  the  eternal  religion.  It 
is  love  thrilled  by  a  felt  contact  with  One  whose  life 
and  soul  were  Love  Incarnate,  love  that  goes  forth  in 
constant  joyful  service.  It  is  the  Church's  mission  to 
preach,  and  still  more  to  exhibit  this  as  the  whole  secret 
of  hving.  When  we  contrast  the  programme  with  the 
course  that  has  actually  been  taken,  we  realise  at  once 
the  enormous  amount  of  ground  and  of  time  that  have 
been  lost.  The  Church,  century  after  century,  has 
been  trying  to  stuff  the  brain — and  that  with  most 
inferior  material — instead  of  to  train  the  heart.  The 
world,  breaking  here  from  the  tutelage  of  the  Church, 
has  of  late  carried  on  its  own  intellectual  affairs  to  its 
enormous  mental  advantage.  But  its  heart  is  starved. 
What  it  craves  now  is  precisely  the  thing  Christianity 
has  to  give,  if  it  will  only  open  its  treasure  house. 

When  the  Church  reaches  once  more  that  first 
temper  ;  when  it  offers  to  men  what  the  first  believers 
offered,  its  great  moment  will  have  come  again.     It 

i6 


Vital  Questions 

has  centuries  of  lost  time  to  make  up.  It  has  to  retrace 
long  leagues  of  wandering  in  order  to  get  back  to  the 
track.  We  need  not  trouble  about  the  revelation  of 
truth.  That  is  streaming  in  upon  us  from  all  quarters. 
What  we  want  is  to  enter  again  into  the  Gospel's  open 
secret.  When  the  Church  has  caught  afresh  its  first 
great  rapture  of  love,  and  set  it  forth  in  the  works  that 
follow,  there  will  be  no  infidels  in  sight. 

WHAT  IS  SIN? 

Christianity  has  a  deeper  note  concerning  sin  than 
is  found  elsewhere.  Its  "  conviction  of  sin  "  is  pecuhar 
to  itself.  Its  saints,  in  every  generation,  have  begun 
with  this.  There  is  no  Hterature  outside  which  carries 
such  an  accent  of  contrition.  When  we  ask  why  it 
is  that  Christianity  carries  this  special  note  of  the 
consciousness  of  sin  we  are  immediately,  for  answer, 
thrown  back  upon  some  fundamental  facts  of  the 
spiritual  hfe.  We  stumble  on  that  foundation  paradox 
that  the  sense  of  sin  is  the  gauge  of  progress.  That 
man  has  this  sense  is  the  sign  that  he  is  rising  ;  the 
intensity  of  the  sense  denotes  the  height  to  which  he 
may  rise.  In  his  pre-human,  animal  stage  he  did  the 
things  he  now  calls  sinful,  and  many  more.  But  he 
did  not  know  them  by  that  name.  It  was  when  the 
ideal  of  something  higher  dawned  on  him  that  the 
sense  awoke  of  moral  defect.  It  is  precisely  because 
the  Christian  ideal  is  the  loftiest  that  has  opened  to  the 
soul  of  man,  that  the  contemplation  of  it  has  produced 
in  him,  age  after  age,  this  pecuhar  depth  and  intensity 
of  self-abasement  and  reproach. 

The  question  of  questions  to-day  concerning  sin  is 


Selections  from   Brierley 

that  of  free  will.  Are  men  really  responsible  for  their 
actions,  or  are  they  simply  links  in  a  chain  of  irresistibly 
working  forces  ?  Is  our  notion  of  freedom  an  illusion, 
like  that — to  use  Spinoza's  illustration — of  a  stone 
flung  into  the  air  and  imagining  that  it  is  flying  ?  If 
the  latter,  the  doctrine  of  sin  in  the  Christian  sense 
falls,  of  course,  to  the  ground,  for  if  man  cannot  help 
being  what  he  is,  or  doing  what  he  does,  there  is  no 
guilt  in  his  deed.  Atonement  would  be  out  of  place, 
and  punishment  a  monstrous  cruelty. 

Human  action,  according  to  physicists  of  the  type 
of  Biichner  and  Haeckel,  is  a  product  of  predetermining 
causes  as  natural  and  as  inevitable  as  the  production 
of  a  crystal  or  a  salt.  Your  deed  to-day  is  one  of  a  chain 
of  effects  traceable  backwards  in  unbroken  succession 
to  the  attractions  and  repulsions  of  the  primordial 
atom.  This  teaching  has  been  presented,  not  only  as 
a  truth  of  science,  but  as  a  gospel  of  hberation.  And 
a  wonderful  relief  truly  for  rascality  that  it  should 
henceforth  have  not  to  blame,  but  only  to  pity  itself ! 

Between  the  Christian  word  which  says,  "  Thou 
hast  sinned  :  repent,"  and  this  other  which  annihilates 
sin,  there  is  really  all  the  difference  between  hope  and 
despair.  The  Biblical  treatment  may  seem  stern  and 
severe.  It  tells  the  delinquent  what  it  thinks  of  him. 
But  its  very  condemnation  is  a  promise.  It  holds  in 
it  the  suggestion  of  remedy.  "  You  are  wrong,  because 
you  can  do  better.  And  in  repentance  and  grace  and 
the  new  resolve  you  can  find  a  way  out."  Compare 
this,  in  the  matter  of  help  and  hope,  with  a  doctrine 
which  tells  a  man  that  his  degradation,  the  vileness  to 
which  he  has  sunk,  and  for  which  he  cannot  help  cursing 
himself,  is  just  the  thing  he  must  be,  one  of  the  results 

18 


Vital  Questions 

for  which  the  whole  world-process  from  the  beginning 
has  been  working  ! 

Solvitur  amhulando.  The  will  proves  itself  free  by 
acting  as  free.  No  study  of  the  outside  machinery 
of  brain  or  nerves,  no  calculations  carried  on  in  tlie 
region  of  matter  and  force,  really  touch  the  question. 
The  will,  m  its  movement  up  or  down  shows  itself  as 
belonging  to  that  inner  moral  and  spiritual  realm  in 
which  man  dwells,  and  where  he  finds  his  true  being. 
And  it  is  in  the  way  that  Christianity  meets  man  here  ; 
in  the  way  it  meets  his  sense  of  loss  and  failure,  of  guilt 
and  disgrace,  with  its  august  economy  of  sacrifice  and 
redemption  ;  by  its  offers  to  him  in  his  extremity  of  a 
Divine  and  gracious  forgiveness,  that  it  establishes 
itself  as  the  eternal  answer  to  his  eternal  problem. 

SALVATION 

"  Salvation,"  "  being  saved,"  and  the  alhed  words 
and  phrases  form  to-day,  as  they  have  formed  in  all  the 
Christian  ages,  an  integral  and  vital  part  in  our  Church 
vocabulary.  The  all-important  question  is.  What  do 
we  now  mean  by  them  ? 

Salvation  is  a  living  word,  expressive  of  a  most  real 
and  living  thing.  There  is  no  man  of  us  but  needs  it, 
nor  that  will  not  fail  without  it.  As  the  outside  hfe — 
the  battle  with  the  elements,  with  circumstance,  with 
the  dead  weight  of  things — demands  our  best  effort,  so 
here,  in  the  inward  life,  victory  comes  only  through 
struggle  and  pain,  the  putting  forth  of  our  utmost  will, 
the  reinforcement  of  other  powers  than  our  own. 
Augustine  found  two  things  in  the  universe,  God  and 
his  own  soul.     Yes,  God  and  the  soul,  and  the  problem 

19  li  j5 


Selections  from  Brierley 

with  us,  as  with  him,  is  to  adjust  their  relations.  No 
man  is  at  peace  till  he  has  found  God,  and  is  on  right 
terms  with  Him.  Through  all  the  languages  and  all 
the  religions  of  men  we  see  this  emerging  as  their  chief 
and  final  business. 

New  Birth  means  the  conscious  union  of  our  poor 
self  with  a  greater  and  better  self,  the  finding  of  that 
Highest  whose  Witness  has  been  ev^er  in  us,  and  to  whom 
now,  as  our  refuge  and  strength,  we  joyfully  give  our- 
selves over.  Christianity,  as  lived,  means  that  first  and 
last.  God  and  the  soul.  Salvation,  working  upward 
to  the  first,  works  downward  next  upon  the  second. 

The  real  saving  is  a  saving  into  character  ;  from  a 
lower  to  a  higher  spiritual  state  of  ourselves.  And, 
considered  as  the  finding  of  God  and  the  finding  of 
character,  salvation  contains  in  it  the  idea  of  a  Church 
as  part  of  its  method.  Do  we  not,  indeed,  find  here 
the  true  sense  of  that  otherwise  hard  saying,  "  Outside 
the  Church  (that  is,  outside  a  brotherly  fellowship)  is 
no  salvation."  For  we  cannot  complete  our  character 
without  our  brotJier's  aid.  All  the  virtues  of  it  sup- 
pose him.  We  cannot  love  nor  serve  nor  sacrifice  ;  we 
cannot  cultivate  humihty,  nor  patience,  nor  self- 
abnegation,  except  as  members  of  a  society.  We 
cannot  find  our  own  soul  except  in  the  soul  of  our 
brother.  There  is  no'^true  joy  that  is  not  a  sharing. 
Being  saved,  then,  is^  a  fellowship  with  God  which 
unites  us  by  love  and  service  with  every  soul  that  He 
has  made. 

UNWORLDLINESS 

What  is  it  to  be  unworldly?     Briefly  it  is,  while 
rej  oicing  in  the  seen,  to  beheve  with  all  our  souls  in  an 

20 


Vital  Questions 

Unseen  ;  while  holding  to  the  present  as  good,  to  hold 
still  more  firmly  to  the  future  as  a  better.  The  un- 
worldly man  is  one  who  takes  the  universe  as  spiritual, 
who  finds  the  spiritual  in  himself,  in  his  neighbour, 
in  all  things  visible  and  invisible  ;  who  trusts  in  that 
spiritual  as  an  uplifting  force  which  is  to  bring  in  a  better 
world  than  is  now  here,  and  which  calls  upon  us  all  to 
help  in  the  task.  This  spiritual  in  him,  linked  to  the 
spiritual  outside  him,  compels  him  every  day  and 
every  hour  to  seek  a  higher  than  he  has  yet  attained, 
knowing  that  to  rest  in  his  moral  endeavour  is  always 
to  go  down  ;  compels  him  equally  to  work  for  the 
betterment  of  his  fellow,  of  the  whole  state  of  things 
in  which  he  fives. 

This  principle  puts  for  him  everything  into  its 
proper  place,  ranges  things  in  their  due  proportion. 
His  work,  his  amusements,  his  sense-enjoyments  fall 
into  fine,  taking  their  place  in  due  order  as  instruments 
and  furtherers  of  his  highest  soul.  He  is  double-sighted '; 
whatever  his  senses  see,  his  soul  sees,  and  sees  so  much 
more  than  comes  upon  his  optic  nerve.  He  is  a 
speculator  in  life's  highest  values,  and  will  touch  no 
stock  that  does  not  yield  these.  He  is  a  pofitician  of 
the  City  of  God.     He  is  ever  of  that  heroic  company 

"  Who,  rowing  hard  against  the  stream. 
Saw  distant  gates  of  Eden  gleam, 
And  did  not  dream  it  was  a  dream." 

The  unworldly  man  can  to-day  hardly  be  fashionable. 
Society,  as  it  is  at  present  constituted,  is  dead  against 
him.  The  modern  Press,  the  most  venal  perhaps  the 
world  has  seen,  the  modern  Press,  whose  circulation  is 
apparently  in  inverse  proportion    to  the    size  of  its 

21 


Selections  from   Brierley 

conscience,  to  which  truth  is  the  smallest  of  considera- 
tions, which  preaches  daily  the  gospel  of  force  and 
of  hatred,  which  lives  by  the  pandering  to  passion  and 
the  lowest  instincts,  has  for  our  idealist  a  contempt 
which  it  expresses  with  all  the  wealth  of  its  rich 
vocabulary.  He  would  be  sorry  to  have,  from  that 
source,  any  other  tribute.  He  smiles  as  he  reads  it, 
for  he  knows  that  he  ^vi\\  win. 

Yes,  for  the  unworldly  man  is  ever  the  creator  of  the 
newer,  the  better  world.  He  is  an  optimist,  sure  of  his 
cause.  For  that  cause  is  the  spiritual  in  man,  the  latest 
born  of  his  faculties,  but  incomparably  the  mightiest. 
Existing  at  present  as  a  thin  streak  at  the  top  of  his 
mind,  it  is  there  to  stay  and  to  grow  until  it  has  subdued 
him  to  its  sway.  This  makes  him  a  worker,  a  preacher 
of  hope  to  the  neediest  and  the  worst.  He  shares  here 
the  audacity  of  Jesus,  the  audacity  which  chose 
pubhcans  and  sinners  for  disciples,  knowing  that  in 
these,  as  in  all  souls,  lay  heaven's  undeveloped 
Kingdom. 

THE  SACRED  AND  THE  SECULAR 

Amongst  the  problems  besetting  and  bewildering  our 
age,  not  the  least  puzzling  is  that  which  hes  around  the 
words  "  sacred  "  and  "  secular."  In  the  history  of 
civilisation  it  is  invariably  the  sacred  that  comes  first. 
What  we  know  as  the  secular  is  always  a  later  evolu- 
tion. If,  for  example,  we  take  the  subject  of  legislation, 
now  regarded  everywhere  as  a  secular  business,  there 
is  not  one  of  the  ancient  systems  that  was  not  originally 
held  to  be  of  Divine  origin.  The  Greek  drama  was 
originally  a  religious  function  ;   and  its  arts  of  painting 

22 


Vital  Questions 

and  sculpture  were  immediately  associated  with  worship. 
In  Christendom  the  same  law  has  obtained.  The 
Church  of  the  earlier  ages  took  upon  itself  to  organise 
the  whole  of  human  affairs. 

How  came  it,  then,  the  developments  of  civihsation 
which  began  in  the  sphere  of  the  "  sacred  "  should  find, 
as  we  see,  their  later  resting-place  in  tlie  "  secular  "  ? 
The  history  of  the  process  is  the  history  of  the  Church's 
mistakes  and  shortcomings.     The  mistakes  were  of  its 
intellect,  the  shortcomings  of  its  heart.     To  understand 
what  happened  we  need  to  begin  with  a  diagnosis  of 
religious  exclusiveness.     At  the  beginning  of  religious 
movements  men  taste  a  peculiar  rapture.     It  is  an 
intense  emotion  associated  with  a  sense  of  intimate 
intercourse  with  the  spiritual  world.     God  is  known  and 
felt  as  a  Person.     The  dwellers  in  this  inner  circle  dis- 
cover that  they  are  the  recipients  of  unutterable  things. 
Into  the  soul  flow  tides  of  energy  that  translate  them- 
selves into  the  sense  of  pardon,  of  fellowship  with  the 
Highest,  of  victory  over  the  world,  of  immortal  hope 
beyond  the  grave.    It  is  felt,  and  rightly  felt,  that  in 
comparison  with  such  experiences  life  has  nothing  else 
that  is  equal  to  offer.     And  most  natural  is  it,  further, 
to  conclude  that  wliatever  seems  to  interrupt  the  flow 
of  such  celestial  intercourse  is  hannful,  and  should  be 
placed  under  taboo. 

We  are  here  at  the  secret  of  the  whole  business.  It 
is  precisely  at  this  point  that  we  discover  how  the 
highest  individual  aspirations  may  fail  to  adjust  them- 
selves to  the  wholeness  of  things.  Our  religionist  will 
at  all  cost  keep  up  his  fervour.  Good  !  But  he  has 
fed  it  solely  upon  one  kind  of  food.  And  he  has  no 
notion  of  a  possibly  beneficial  change  of  diet.     When 

23 


Selections  from  Brierley 

for  his  inner  development,  in  addition  to  the  prayers, 
the  exercises,  the  spiritual  records  which  have  appealed 
to  him  hitherto,  there  is  offered  a  whole  new  range  of 
ideas  and  activities,  his  instinct  is  to  start  back  and 
refuse.  The  idea  that  there  was  no  other  food  for  the 
soul  than  that  they  had  known,  for  one  thing,  narrowed 
immeasurably  their  outlook.  Into  a  disastrous  blunder 
did  the  Church  fall  when  it  identified  its  spiritual 
treasure  and  its  rehgious  feehng  with  a  world- view 
which  science  was  discovering  to  be  inadequate  and 
erroneous.  What  that  blunder  meant  for  civilisation 
Lecky  has  described  for  us.  "  Every  mental  dis- 
position which  philosophy  pronounces  to  be  essential 
to  a  legitimate  research  was  almost  uniformly  branded 
as  a  sin,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the  most  deadly 
intellectual  vices  were  dehberately  inculcated  as 
virtues.  The  theologians,  by  destroying  every  book 
that  could  generate  discussion,  by  diffusing  to  every 
field  of  knowledge  a  spirit  of  boundless  creduhty  .  .  . 
succeeded  in  almost  arresting  the  action  of  the 
European  mind." 

In  the  light  of  these  hints  we  discover  how  our  two 
separate  territories  came  into  being,  with  the  boundary 
wall  between  them.  On  the  one  side  was  religion, 
enamoured  of  its  high  emotions,  unwilHng  to  admit 
anything  that  served  to  hinder  their  flow,  and  in  their 
supposed  interests  thrusting  out  or  stamping  down  all 
that  was  new  and  strange.  On  the  other  cide  a  whole 
fresh  world  of  sciences,  arts  and  interests  dev^eloping 
out  of  the  religious  consciousness,  yet  disowned  by  it ; 
sure  of  themselves  and  of  their  right  to  exist,  3/et 
ostracised  by  their  parents  ;  growing  away  from  their 
first  home,  andi'so,  to  a  large  extent,  strange  to  the 

24 


Vital  Questions 

inspirations  which  that  home  alone  could  suppl}'.  It 
is  ours  to  reverse  the  process  and  find  the  way  from 
secular  to  sacred.  The  early  shortcoming  was  really 
moral  as  much  as  intellectual.  Religion  must  found 
itself  on  a  wider  synthesis.  Only  thus  can  it  reconquer 
a  world  half  of  which  it  has  allowed  to  sHp  out  of  its 
grasp.  To  science,  to  art,  to  commerce,  to  the  drama, 
to  amusement,  it  must  resume  the  relation  which  it 
had  at  the  beginning,  and  which  only  its  own  folly 
has  dislocated.  No  rehgion  is  complete  without  a 
relation  to  every  department  of  hfe.  No  department 
of  life  is  complete  without  a  relation  to  religion.  There 
is  no  science,  no  art,  no  true  pleasure  in  which  a 
properly-adjusted  nature  cannot  immediately  find  and 
enjoy  God. 


WHAT  IS  LIFE? 

Life  means  work.  Our  being's  end,  its  true 
happiness,  lies  there.  We  has^e  no  perfection,  because 
it  is  not  perfection  but  the  striving  for  it,  the  reaching 
after  something  yet  beyond,  that  fits  us  best.  To 
arrive  at  a  point  where  we  had  to  stop  because  there 
was  nothing  more  to  be  done — imagine  that  as  a  destiny ! 
It  is  too  horrible  to  think  of.  The  nethermost  hell, 
with  a  chance  of  working  our  way  out  of  it,  would  be 
vastly  better. 

This,  to  some  ears,  may  sound  strange,  but  let  us 
think  a  httle.  Suppose  yourself  placed  in  the  most 
enchanting  paradise  the  imagination  can  conceive  ;  a 
city  whose  streets  are  gold  and  whose  gates  are  pearl, 
a  country  where  eternal  summer  reigns,  where  every 

25 


Selections  from   Brierley 

want  is  met ;  no  poverty,  no  hunger,  no  death,  no 
burden.  And  you  are  there  with  nothing  to  do  !  You 
sit,  because  there  is  no  end  to  be  achieved  by  walking. 
You  are  still,  because  all  the  ends  for  activity  have 
been  accomplished.  You  are  to  sit  there  for  eternity  ! 
A  good  hour  of  that  would  bore  most  of  us  to  extinction. 
No,  that  is  not  our  happiness,  in  this  or  any  world  we 
can  conceive.  Our  pleasures,  our  most  passionate 
joys,  are  a  movement  ;  to  stay  it  at  where  we  are  were 
to  spoil  all.  Our  whole  living  is  under  this  law.  The 
action  of  a  mineral  poison  is  by  stopping  the  change  and 
decay  of  the  tissues.  To  stay  this  activity,  even  this 
activity  of  decay,  is  death. 

That  this  is  the  one  supreme  law  for  ourselves  is 
the  more  evident  when  we  remember  that  it  is  the 
one  law  of  all  Nature.  There  is  no  such  thing  in 
Nature  as  absolute  inertia.  The  most  seemingly 
stable  things  are  full  of  movement.  The  world's  work 
is  always  going  on.  When  we  are  resting,  our  nature 
is  not  resting.  In  our  sleep  the  heart  is  pumping,  the 
lungs  are  respiring,  our  brain-cells  are  busy  repairing 
the  wastes  and  losses  of  the  day.  Often  when  the 
conscious  "  we  "  is  doing  least,  our  unconscious  "  we  " 
is  doing  most — tliat  imconscious  "  we,"  our  true 
guardian  angel,  which  never  sleeps,  which  never  relaxes 
from  its  faithful  toil. 

This  has  surely  an  important  bearing  upon  our  social 
outlooks  and  endeavours.  We  sec  liere  how  the  Gospel 
becomes  scientific.  The  maxim,  "  It  is  better  to  give 
than  to  receive,"  and  the  statement  that  man,  in  his 
highest  representative,  "  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  but  to  minister,"  cease  to  be  mere  saws  of  the 
pulpit ;   they  stand  as  representing  the  cosmic  law,  the 

26 


Vital  Questions 

ultimate  secret  of  living.  For  the  secret  of  a  man's 
living  is  just  that  of  getting  all  of  him  to  work,  and  in 
the  right  way — his  body  to  work,  his  mind  to  work,  and 
his  soul  to  work. 

The  signs  are  that,  as  the  world  progresses,  the 
rougher  kinds  of  manual  toil  will  be  superseded,  giving 
place  to  the  action  of  nature-forces  under  the  guidance 
of  the  intellect.  Man  will  work  more  and  more  with 
his  upper  part.  Our  sowing,  our  reaping ,  our  threshing, 
our  travelhng,  are  done  by  the  machine.  Work  is  such 
a  different  thing  to  different  people.  The  old-time 
labourer  thought  the  mere  mentahst  a  loafer,  with  a  too 
easy  job.  The  present  writer,  once,  in  countiy  lodgings, 
after  a  hard  daj^  at  his  books,  by  way  of  relaxation 
busied  himself  with  a  spade  in  the  garden.  "  Ah,"  said 
his  farmer  host,  "  I  see  that  you  are  taking  to  a  bit  of 
work  !  "  He  was  astonished  when  I  told  him  I  called 
this  rest. 

But  there  is  an  activity  beyond  that  both  of  the  body 
and  the  intellect.  It  is  that  of  the  soul.  Men  only 
half-live  to-day  because  of  the  idleness  of  their  best 
nature.  With  a  bewildering  rush  at  the  circumference 
there  is  a  fatal  inertia  at  the  centre.  For  after  all  itj.s 
by  the  snul's  activity  that  we  reach  life's  ultimate 
secret.  And  the  proof  of  this  is  seen  when  we  find 
people  fnlFof  bodily  strength  and  of  intellectual  gifts 
often  amongst  ^~e  most  unhappy,  while  men  and  women 
wliose  health  has  gone  and  whose  mental  powers  are 
crippled,  from  their  invalid  couches  are  crying  "  Vic- 
tory !  "  ItTs  where  the  soul  is  bus}^  busy  in  the  right 
direction,  that  we  find  triumphant  living.  It  is  the 
soul  that  puts  values  on  life.  One  of  its  highest 
activities  is  that  of  appreciation.     Your  world  is  every 

27 


Selections  from   Brierley 

day  of  your  making.  If  it  is  a  good,  a  glorious  world, 
it  is  because  you  bring  to  it  the  spiritual  capacity 

"  To  see  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand 
And  a  heaven  in  a  wild  flower, 
To  hold  infinity  in  a  palm  of  the  hand 
And  eternity  in  an  hour." 

The  world  is  a  world  for  workers.  We  are  here  for  that, 
and  to  find  our  liappincss  in  that.  It  is  left  imperfect 
in  order  that  we  may  add  to  it  our  contribution.  And 
because  this  is  so,  our  social  programme  should  be  one 
which  first  and  foremost  aims  at  the  liberation  of  the 
workers  ;  at  the  development  of  every  human  faculty, 
bodily,  mental  and  spiritual,  to  their  highest  point,  and 
to  their  truest  harmony.  Here  is  the  secret  of  living 
and  of  possessing.  For  man's  true  possession  is,  after 
all,  the  possession  of  himself. 

WHAT  IS  DEATH? 

Death  is  at  once  the  most  famihar  and  the  most 
unfamiliar  of  human  facts.  We  are  all  agreed  that  we 
must  die,  but  the  world  has  been  quarrelHng  from  the 
very  beginning  as  to  what  dying  really  means.  Num- 
bers of  cultivated  men  in  both  hemispheres  hold,  in 
their  secret  mind,  that  this  life  is  all,  or  at  least  that  the 
odds  are  enormously  against  there  being  any  other. 
The  extent  to  which  men  have  succumbed  to  this  argu- 
ment is  patent  in  the  whole  literature  of  modern 
Europe.  This  particular  mood  has,  indeed,  lain  heavily 
upon  Europe  during  more  than  a  generation. 

But  there  are  signs  that  it  is  passing  away.  And  the 
curious  tiling  is  that  the  cure  is  coming  from  the  very 
quarter  out  of  which  came  the  disease.     For  it  is  the 

28 


Vital  Questions 

science,  the  material  observation,  which  appeared  at 
first  to  rivet  on  man  the  chains  of  death,  that  is  now 
forging  the  instruments  of  his  dehverance.  First  of  all,  it 
has  shown  us  the  fallacy  of  appearances.  The  premises 
on  which  the  old  materialistic  arguments  were  based 
are  being  shattered  by  more  extended  observation. 
Matter,  the  partner  of  spirit,  is  showing  in  such  entirely 
new  lights  as  to  make  us  recast  all  our  conceptions  about 
it.  Whatever  death  does  to  spirit,  it  does  not  destroy 
matter.  It  changes  it,  that  is  all.  And  if  all  death  can 
do  to  one,  and  the  inferior  partner  in  the  human  com- 
pact, is  to  alter  its  form,  what  natural  or  logical  ground, 
men  are  beginning  to  ask,  is  there  for  supposing  that 
it  can  do  more  with  its  associate,  the  spirit  ?  The 
broad  hint  of  science  here  is  that,  hke  its  mate  the  body, 
the  spirit  maybe  transmuted, but  will  not  be  destroyed. 

It  is  at  first  starthng,  but  afterwards  infinitely 
reassuring,  to  learn  that  in  the  scheme  of  evolution 
death  is  not  a  necessity,  but  simply  one  of  Nature's 
devices  for  the  furtherance  of  hfe.  It  was  in  the 
endeavour  after  a  higher  and  more  complicated 
structure  that  death  entered.  These  studies  show  us 
life,  instead  of  being  lorded  over  by  death,  pressing  it 
into  its  service  to  help  build  up  its  structures  and  com- 
plete its  developments.  Instead  of  being  the  dread 
tyrant  before  which  all  must  bow,  death  is  shown  to  be 
life's  day  labourer,  whose  entrance  on  the  scene  can  be 
discerned,  and  whose  departure,  when  his  work  is  done, 
may  be  predicted. 

It  may  be  said  that  what  science  here  offers  does 
not,  after  all,  amount  to  much.  It  would  not  if  it 
stood  alone.  But  it  comes  as  reinforcement  to  an  im- 
mense  and   growing   body   of   considerations   arising 

29 


Selections  from  Brierley 

from  another  source.  Man's  strongest  hope  for 
immortahty  rests,  after  all,  upon  his  moral  and  spiritual 
intuitions,  and  upon  his  moral  and  spiritual  history. 
He  dwells  in  a  visible  universe  which  he  can  prove  has 
come  out  of  an  unseen  one,  to  which  it  will  eventually 
return.  He  has  already  multiform  relations  with  that 
Unseen,  and  is  continually  enlarging  them.  The 
highest  thinkers  everywhere  recognise  the  spirit  world 
as  the  most  real  and  the  most  mighty.  Spirit  every- 
where pervades  matter  and  everywhere  rules  it.  And 
this  permanent  force,  amid  a  world  of  change,  man 
realises  as  abiding  not  only  in  the  Universe  on  which 
he  looks,  but  in  his  own  deepest  self.  The  Eternal 
\vithin  him  claims  kinship  with  the  Eternal  without 
him.  His  desires  here  are  facts  in  the  making.  His 
yearning  for  immortality  is  the  unborn  in  him  groping 
for  the  light  to  which  it  is  destined  ;  it  is  the  inland 
stream  calling,  as  it  runs,  to  the  ocean  whence  it  came 
and  towards  which  it  hastes. 


WHAT  IS  ETERNITY? 

The  concept  of  eternity  which  pictures  for  us  a 
changeless  universe,  an  eternity  of  endless  and  aimless 
rearrangements  of  matter  and  force,  is  not  only 
unscientific ;  it  is  unmoral.  Were  it  accepted  the 
only  morality  could  be  one  of  convenience.  To  the 
extent  it  is  believed  in,  human  life  becomes  a  jest  or  a 
pessimist  tragedy.  Religious  thought  on  this  theme 
has  been  continually  stumbling  upon  two  mistakes. 
One  is  the  identification  of  eternity  with  the  idea  of 
cataclysm  and  catastrophe.  Successive  generations  of 
Christian  people  have  gone  on  dividing  their  world- 

30 


Vital  Questions 

system  into  two  parts — one  the  time  in  which  they 
hved,  which  was  about  to  come  to  an  end,  and  the 
other,  "  eternity,"  which  was  to  be  ushered  in  by  an 
overwhelming  cosmic  outburst.  It  is  surely  time  that 
this  view  of  eternity,  as  of  a  kind  of  approaching  tidal 
wave  that  will  by-and-by  roll  in  and  submerge  every- 
thing that  is,  should  be  recognised  by  sensible  men  as 
provedly  false  and  provedly  immoral,  and  as  such  to 
be  henceforth  dropped  and  done  with. 

And  with  this  must  go  another  idea  that  has  prevailed 
even  more  \videly.  It  is  that  view  which  has  regarded 
eternity  as  a  kind  of  infinite  Topsy-turvydom,  in  which 
all  the  principles  of  Divine  government  which  we 
recognise  in  the  present  state  are  to  be  neutrahsed  and 
reversed. 

It  is  time  we  reached  that  nobler  concept  of  eternity 
which  is  at  once  the  essence  both  of  true  religion  and 
of  true  morals.  The  more  we  study  it,  both  in  the 
New  Testament  and  in  that  other  revelation  given  in 
the  ever-growing  human  consciousness,  the  more  we 
shall  reahse  the  inadequacy  and  the  falseness  of  the 
travesties  we  have  been  sketching.  In  this  clearer 
light  we  shall  recognise  the  Apocalyptic  thunderings 
and  trumpetings  as  poetic  representations  of  a  some- 
thing that  in  itself  is  entirely  spiritual.  The  true 
eternity  which  Christ  taught  has,  it  is  true,  duration 
in  it ;  death  also  and  the  Beyond  in  it ;  but  tliese  are 
the  smallest  part  of  the  idea.  For,  essentially.  His 
eternity  is  not  only  then,  but  now ;  not  only  there, 
beyond  the  stars,  but  here,  in  the  conscious  soul.  The 
eternal  hfe  He  offers  is  not  a  mere  uncountable  sum 
of  years.  Its  chief  element  is  a  conscious  relation  to, 
reception  of,    and    fellowship  with,   that    immutable 

31 


Selections  from  Brierley 

spiritual  Order  which  exists  behind  the  veil.  It  is 
the  sharing  of  that  Divine  reahty  of  which  the  soul's 
most  ardent  aspirations  are  the  faint  adumbration  ; 
to  taste  of  which  is  to  know  at  once  hfe's  meaning,  and 
its  inmost  satisfaction. 

It  is  eternity  under  this  aspect  that  gives  moraUty 
its  one  vital  and  efficacious  motive,  and  to  human  life 
its  true  value  and  perspective.  It  is  a  view  which 
inspires  the  whole  man.  The  man  who  gives  clearest 
proof  to  his  brethren  that  his  habitual  dweUing  is  in 
that  region,  who  can  bring  to  them  largest  spoil  of 
this  sacred  Invisible,  will  be  always  recognised  by  them 
in  the  end  as  of  all  benefactors  the  highest. 


?2 


THE   INNER   LIFE 


THE    INNER    LIFE 

RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

Religion,  whatever  may  be  its  after  fortunes,  has 
its  rise  always  as  a  free  movement  of  the  soul.  Its 
starting-point  is  an  experience.  All  the  religion  at 
present  in  sight,  that  contained  in  Bible,  in  Church 
institutions,  in  theology,  began  here.  The  grittiest 
formularies  are  the  petrifactions  of  what  was  once 
volatile  and  flowing  ;  they  are  visibles  congealed  from 
an  invisible  breath.  Religion  comes  first  to  great  souls 
as  an  obsession,  an  answering  thrill  to  the  call  of  the 
Infinite.  Theology  is  the  oft-repeated,  manifold 
attempt  to  put  this  primitive  thrill  into  words. 

The  tides  from  the  Infinite  flow  in  first  upon  selected 
and  prepared  souls.  These  do  their  best  to  mediate  to 
others  of  what  they  have  received.  But  it  is  only  a 
partial  transmission.  What  has  really  passed  in  the 
minds  of  the  spiritual  leaders  is  always  their  own  secret. 
They  could  not  reveal  it  if  they  would,  because  there 
are  no  words  available.  What  has  determined  them 
to  their  great  choices  has  been  rarely  a  process  of 
argument.  Madame  Guyon  says  of  her  sojourn  at 
Grenoble  :  "I  felt  myself  on  a  sudden  invested  with 
the  apostoHc  state,  and  discerned  the  conditions  of 
the  souls  of  such  persons  as  spoke  to  me."     With  some 

35  C2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

there  is  a  sudden  inrush  of  what  is  felt  to  be  Divine. 
Jacob  Bchmen  thus  describes  his  experience  at  Gorhtz  : 
**  There  came  a  blessed  peace  or  Sabbath  of  the  soul 
that  lasted  seven  days,  during  which  I  was,  as  it  were, 
inwardly  surrounded  by  a  Divine  light.  The  triumph 
that  was  then  in  my  soul  I  can  neither  tell  nor 
describe." 

These  first-hand  experiences,  borne  in  on  the  con- 
sciousness of  elect  souls,  are  for  the  world  the  origin 
of  its  rchgious  hfe.  Working  on  the  first  recipients 
with  an  extraordinary  energy,  they  issue  from  them  as 
winged  words,  as  mysterious  influences,  as  startling 
activities. 

And  the  best  men  of  those  ages  never  forgot  that,  in 
faithfully  handing  down  what  they  had  received,  they 
were  most  effectively  helping  succeeding  generations 
to  a  first-hand  religious  consciousness  of  their  own. 
In  the  words  of  Christ  and  of  His  Apostles  they  recog- 
nised the  spiritual  laws,  by  obeying  which  the  soul 
became  sensitised  for  the  reception  of  new  light  and 
power.  It  is  while  on  the  roads  marked  out  by  the 
ancient  leaders  that  the  modern  pilgrim  gets  his  vision. 
It  is  on  this  account  that  the  Scriptures  remain  the 
eternal  treasure-house  of  the  soul.  So  often  in  studying 
them  has  the  illumination  come  which,  for  the  reader, 
for  ever  transformed  his  world.  Men  talk  of  the  evils 
inflicted  by  a  misguided  religionism.  But  oh  !  the 
happiness  of  the  real  thing  !  No  one  has  given  us  that 
story,  for  it  cannot  be  put  into  words — the  moment 
when  men  have  seen  clearly  the  Eternal  Love  shining 
upon  them,  and  when  what  before  was  an  outlook  on 
poverty  and  failure  and  utter  despair  has  been  changed 
into  tlie  bhss  of  a  Divine  assurance  !     There  are  humble 

36 


The  Inner  Life 

people  to-day,  weaving  at  the  loom,  working  in  pits, 
on  death-beds,  who,  because  they  have  that  experience, 
are  happier  than  kings.  When  preachers  carry  this 
experience  to  their  pulpit  the  churches  thrive.  They 
cannot  tell  all  they  know,  but  the  sight  of  them 
handhng  this  treasure,  and  calhng  their  brethren  to 
share  it,  is  in  itself  an  irresistible  appeal. 

PRAYER 

Prayer  on  the  human  side  is  man's  declared  aHiance 
with  the  Infinite.  It  is  the  sap  in  us,  all  the  warm  hfe- 
current  in  us,  rising  past  every  intermediate  object  of 
desire  to  our  very  topmost,  and  thence  streaming  out 
to  meet  that  higher  Beyond  of  which  it  knows  itself  a 
part.  For  we  know  ourselves  not  as  a  finished  product, 
but  as  rather  a  process,  a  becoming,  and  in  prayer  we 
seek  the  element  which  is  making  us. 

It  is  in  this  conception  we  finally  meet  the  objection, 
absurd  in  itself,  of  prayer  being  the  dictation  of  weak- 
ness and  ignorance  to  the  all-governing  wisdom.  The 
objection  ignores  the  whole  system  of  things  in  this 
world.  It  supposes  that  man's  prayer  begins  with  man, 
whereas  nothing  in  man  begins  with  him.  It  began  first 
in  his  universe,  in  his  Maker.  It  is  as  the  action  of  sun 
and  rain.  From  out  of  the  ocean  the  sun  draws  up  the 
vapours,  which  later  come  back  in  showers  upon  the 
earth.  Here  is  a  circulation  from  deep  to  height,  and 
from  height  again  to  deep.  So,  under  the  shining  of  the 
Sun  behind  the  sun,  out  of  the  deeps  of  man's  mind  and 
heart  are  carried  up  the  invisible  currents  of  his 
aspiration  and  soul's  desire,  to  descend  afterwards  in 
secret  responses  which  he  knows,  nevertheless,  to  be 


Selections  from  Brierley 

real.  Real,  though  the  first  form  of  his  desire  is  often 
enough  left  unanswered.  The  response  lies,  indeed, 
often  enough  in  the  heightening  and  purification  of  his 
desire.  In  Gethsemane's  agony  he  prays,  maybe,  for 
his  cup  to  pass  from  him.  He  leaves  the  garden  with 
no  other  wish  than  that  God's  will  be  done. 

What  may  be  the  precise  relation  of  our  nature  to 
that  unseen  side  of  things  to  which  in  prayer  it  appeals, 
we  may  not  accurately  know.  But  this  we  are  assured 
of,  that  the  response  from  that  other  side  is  immense. 
Under  certain  inspirations  the  giants  of  faith  have 
asked  and  received,  because  the  asking  and  the  receiv- 
ing were  alike  of  God.  It  is  in  this  region  the  heroes 
have  found  their  strength.  Gordon  in  his  tent  here 
won  his  battles  beforehand.  Here  the  common  man 
conquers  himself  and  the  world.  Fides  impetrat  qucs 
lex  imperat.     "  Faith  obtains  what  the  law  enjoins." 

THE  PROGRESS  OF  THE  SOUL 

The  one  progress  we  have  to  plan  and  work  for  is  the 
progress  of  man,  of  his  body,  his  brain,  and,  above  all, 
of  his  soul.  And  how  slow  has  been  the  movement  here  ; 
what  lapses,  what  retrogressions  !  Compare  the  modern 
Egyptian  with  his  far-off  ancestor,  according  to  what 
we  read  of  him  in  perhaps  the  oldest  book  in  the  world, 
"  The  Precepts  of  Pta-ho-Tep."  This  book,  of  the 
time  of  the  fiftli  dynasty,  is  full  of  the  highest  morality, 
where  special  stress  is  laid  on  the  vital  importance  of 
training  children,  and  of  making  a  son  a  true  gentleman  ! 
And  have  we  Christians  got  far  ahead  of  those  Essene 
communities  whom  Josephus  and  Philo  describe  for  us  ; 
who  laboured  in  agriculture  for  their  subsistence,  who 

38 


The  Inner  Life 

practised  the  strictest  temperance  ;  of  whom  we  read  : 
"  Here  everyone  is  master  of  his  passions  and  a  friend 
of  peace.  In  all  their  work  the  brethren  obey  the  direc- 
tions of  their  superiors  ;  only  acts  of  kindness  and 
mercy  are  left  to  their  own  discretion.  Truthfulness  in 
every  word  is  strictly  enjoined  ;  they  bind  themselves 
to  honour  God,  to  practise  righteousness  towards  men, 
always  to  hate  the  unrighteous  and  to  help  the  righteous 
to  be  faithful  in  his  relations  with  all  "  ?  The  world 
has  moved  since  then  towards  vaster  things  than 
Egyptian  or  Essene  ever  conceived.  Nevertheless,  our 
modern  society,  in  contemplation  of  such  habits  of  life, 
might  well  turn  to  the  recovery  of  some  of  these  lost 
ideals  instead  of  boasting  itself  overmuch. 

For  these  people  beheved  in  the  soul,  and  it  is  the  one 
thing  to  believe  in.  It  is  the  one  possession  we  have 
that  is  fortified  against  decay,  whose  development  can 
be  carried  on  to  life's  latest  moment.  The  years  take 
from  us  everything  else  ;  our  bodily  vigour,  our  mental 
force,  our  friends,  our  place  and  position  in  the  active 
world.  But  in  this  inmost  centre  of  life  we  can  go  on 
still  growing,  making  our  losses,  our  very  weakness,  an 
occasion  of  its  further  disciphne,  the  incentive  of  its 
deeper  energies,  of  its  immortal  hopes. 

"  The  soul's  dark  cottage,  battered  and  decayed, 
Lets  in  new  light  through  chinks  that  time  has  made  ; 
Stronger  by  weakness,  wiser  men  become, 
As  they  draw  near  to  their  eternal  home." 

Let  us  be  of  good  cheer.  We  are  in  the  order  of 
progress.  And  our  own  stroke  of  work,  if  it  be  an 
honest  stroke,  will  tell  in  it.  Is  it  not  better,  after  all, 
to  be  in  an  unfinished  world,  with  ourselves  as  helpers 
towards  its  perfectness,  than  merely  spectators  of  one 

39 


Selections  from  Brierley 

where  everything  is  done  and  finished  ?  Herein  is  the 
greatness  and  joy  of  our  calhng,  to  be  not  lookers-on, 
but  co-workers.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  in  our  work  and 
hfe  we  follow,  and  help  our  brother  to  follow,  the  true 
roads  of  progress,  and  not  the  false  ones. 


RELIGIOUS  TEMPERAMENTS 

Religion  in  its  wholeness  is  something  far  other  than  a 
temperament.  There  are,  nevertheless,  departments  of 
its  expression  for  which  certain  temperaments  seem 
specially  fitted,  and  the  possessors  of  these  are  almost 
certain  to  be  chosen  as  guides  and  leaders.  There  are 
varieties  here,  widely  differing,  and  an  accurate  analysis 
would  have  to  take  in  a  large  gradation  of  subtle 
shadings.  Speaking  broadly,  however,  there  are  two 
well-marked  forms  of  religious  character,  each  wielding 
immense  power,  each  capable  of  noble  service,  but  open 
both  of  them  to  dangerous  and  even  deadly  defects — 
the  aesthetic  and  the  ascetic. 

The  former,  which  in  certain  varieties  might  perhaps 
be  even  better  described  as  the  emotional,  is  singularly 
open  to  impression.  Delicately  strung,  with  an  artist's 
soul  for  beauty,  vibrating  to  life's  subtlest  overtones, 
with  an  intense  sense  of  the  awe  and  mystery  of  Hfe,  it 
is  made  for  the  rehgion  of  feehng.  Its  faith  at  the 
fullest  is  a  rapture,  an  ecstasy.  It  is  an  epicureanism 
of  the  higher  sensations.  It  beholds  visions,  it  listens 
inwardly  to  melodies  which  no  mortal  music  ever  made, 
and  when  it  comes  to  expression,  there  are  none  can 
speak  so  pleadingly,  so  persuasively.  Men  listen  as  to 
angel  voices.  But  all  this  is  at  a  price.  Humanity 
would  have  got  on  badly  enough  for  its  religion  without 

40 


The  Inner  Life 

this  temperament,  but  still  worse  had  it  been  the  only 
one.  As  if  to  teach  the  lesson  of  the  human  sohdarity, 
the  lesson  that  the  whole  world  of  us,  and  no  one 
individual  or  type,  is  the  true  man,  we  find  this  charac- 
ter full  of  weaknesses  and  leaning  always  heavily  upon 
others. 

The  other  variety  of  the  religious  temperament — the 
ascetic — of  which  every  age  produces  specimens,  with 
its  superb  reaction  against  the  slothful  indulgence  of  the 
masses,  develops  often  into  a  potent  and  magnificent 
spiritual  leadership.  Founding  itself  on  a  heroic 
mysticism  that  discerns  from  the  beginning  the  essential 
emptiness  of  material  and  sensuous  pleasures,  it  presses 
on  behind  the  veil  to  find  its  joy  in  spiritual  reahty.  It 
is  enamoured  of  renunciation,  and  finds  a  marvellous 
liberty  in  following  that  austere  road  which  St.  John  of 
the  Cross  indicates  in  his  motto  :  "  Whatever  you  find 
pleasant  to  soul  or  body,  abandon  ;  whatsoever  is  pain- 
ful, embrace  it." 

It  is  tim.e  we  were  done  with  the  pseudo-Christianity 
whose  leading  characteristic  is  the  exhalation  of  gloom. 
There  is  no  grace  in  this  November  fog.  Sourness  is  a 
crime  of  Use  hmnanite.  To  what,  O  my  bilious  brother, 
do  you  propose  to  convert  the  world  ?  To  your  own 
grimness  ?  It  were  hardly  an  improvement.  The 
world  wants  saving  into  soundness  and  hght,  and  it 
shows  a  healthy  discrimination  in  refusing  the  overtures 
of  morbidity  and  darkness.  When  the  Church 
thoroughly  understands  this  it  will  mend  some  of  its 
ways.  In  teaching  the  higher  life  of  the  invisible,  it 
will  show  always  its  appreciation  of  that  fair  world  of 
the  seen  which  is  the  other's  vestibule.  It  will  teach 
that  man  belongs  to  the  two,  and  may  be  a  proficient 

41 


Selections  from   Brierley 

in  both.  The  man  who  enjoys  helps  others  to  enjoy. 
He  cannot  keep  his  sunshine  to  himself.  It  is  here  that, 
turning  from  the  imperfections  of  its  followers,  we  see 
the  Divine  wholeness  of  the  Master-life.  A  Prophet  of 
the  invisible,  Christ  knew  and  loved  the  seen.  The 
world  of  birds  and  flowers,  of  happy  sunshine  and  human 
fellowships,  was  also  His  world.  A  Messenger  from  the 
Centre,  He  dwelt  with  gladness  in  the  outer  court, 
knowing  it  also  was  a  part  of  the  Father's  house. 

THE  INNER  DISCIPLINE 

That  is  an  admirable  definition  of  fasting  which 
Clement  of  Alexandria  gives  us  in  the  "  Stromata  "  : 
"  liow  fastings  signify  abstinence  from  all  e^•ils  whatso- 
ever, both  in  action  and  in  word,  and  in  thought 
itself."  "  In  thought  itself  "  !  Our  religion  has  done 
nothing  for  us  umcbs  it  has  given  us  an  easy  control 
here.  It  is  in  this  realm,  indeed,  that  its  whole  triumph 
hes.  Its  grandest  product  is  the  entire  and  joyful 
acquiescence  in  whatsoever  befalls  us. 

The  notion  of  religion  as  an  assurance  against 
calamities  is  too  naive.  It  is  rather  a  preparation  for 
them  and  a  state  of  soul  for  meeting  them.  Circum- 
stance may  play  its  worst  trick  upon  us  ;  it  may  reduce 
us  in  a  moment  from  wealth  to  poverty,  from  strength 
and  activity  to  the  extremity  of  weakness.  The  soul, 
disciphned  by  faith,  will  meet  that  extremity  and  not 
be  cowed  by  it.  It  will  rcahse  with  Vauvenargues  that 
"  despair  is  the  worst  of  our  errors."  Its  whole 
development  will  have  taught  it  to  accept  life,  in 
whatsoever  strange  and  repelling  form  it  for  the 
moment  offers  itself,  as  a  present  good  and  the  promise 

42 


The  Inner  Life 

of  an  infinite  better.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  be  taught 
our  utter  nothingness.  After  we  have  tasted  that 
sensation  we  are  ready  for  what  generally  comes  next, 
the  sense  of  the  Divine  sufficiency.  We  rest  in  a 
system  of  things  which  is  too  vast  for  our  comprehen- 
sion, but  which  we  feel  to  be  good.  We  know  ourselves 
as  in  an  orderly  universe  with  Infinite  Perfection  at  its 
centre. 

It  is  by  such  inner  discipline,  and  by  no  other  process, 
that  we  arrive  at  the  perception  of  the  higher  truths. 
Good  comes  first,  truth  afterwards.  Les  grandes  pensees 
viennent  du  cceur.  The  heart  knows  truths  which  the 
reason  cannot  formulate.  We  require  a  certain  inner 
height  to  discern  life's  greatest  secret.  It  is  given  alone 
to  the  pure  in  heart  to  see  God. 

BENEATH  THE  SURFACE 

In  the  tumult  of  our  modern  life,  amid  the  confused 
din  of  its  many-tongued  utterance,  we  need  continually 
to  look  to  what  is  beneath,  to  what  is  unexpressed. 
One  might  think,  to  hsten  to  the  voices  which  shriek 
in  our  modern  Press,  that  the  world  were  more  securely 
than  ever  in  the  grip  of  the  devil.  We  are  called  to 
imperiahsm,  to  patriotism,  to  mihtarism,  as  the  highest 
of  our  privileges,  the  foremost  of  our  duties.  Beneath 
this  clamour,  if  we  look  steadily,  we  discern  a  hidden 
thing  ;  it  is  the  panic  of  the  brute  instinct  in  us, 
specially  dominant  in  certain  classes — the  most  vocal 
classes — against  the  formation  of  another  sentiment 
which  is  destined  to  destroy  "  these  dragons  of  the 
prime."  This  sentiment  is  beginning  already  to  find 
its  voice  and  to  ask  questions.     "  What  do  you  mean 

43 


Selections  from  Brierley 

by  your  imperialism  ?  If  it  stands,  as  it  seems,  for 
an  empire  of  which  we  hav'e  to  brag  and  boast,  which 
is  to  use  its  power  to  beat  down  competitors,  to  inflame 
its  members  with  tlie  intoxication  of  a  false  glory,  we 
will  have  none  of  it.  Man's  function,  in  or  out  of  the 
'  empires,'  is  plainly  not  that.  He  is  here  not  to 
dragoon  but  to  help,  not  to  boast  himself  but  to  serve. 
Your  mihtarism  is  out  of  date  ;  sufficient  for  the  past 
that  nations  should  exist  without  conscience  ;  that 
they  should  take  pride  as  masses  in  what  they  detest 
as  individuals  ;  that  they  should  conceive  thieving  and 
murdering,  when  we  call  it  war,  as  anything  other  than 
thieving  and  murdering  at  our  own  doorstep  ;  that 
assassination  in  masses  is  any  less  detestable  than  the 
assassination  of  individuals  ;  that  to  settle  a  national 
quarrel  by  stabbing  and  shooting  is  any  less  barbarous 
than  in  this  way  to  settle  a  private  one." 

Against  all  this  devilry  there  is  a  spirit  arising,  only 
half  articulate  as  yet,  but  which  in  time  will  find  its 
hand  and  its  tongue.  Already  it  has  eyes  in  its  head, 
and  can  see  the  real  shape  of  these  monsters,  hitherto 
so  cunningly  disguised.  When  it  fully  finds  its  voice 
it  will  call  them  by  their  true  names.  Its  unexpressed 
will  by  and  by  come  into  form,  in  deeds  and  charters 
of  the  human  solidarity.  It  will  erase  some  words 
from  its  vocabulary  and  put  new  ones  in  their  place. 
It  will  cease  to  speak  of  the  foreigner,  the  ahen,  tho 
foe.  It  will  know  humanity  as  one,  a  common 
brotherhood,  with  equal  claim  upon  our  service  and 
our  love. 

Good  and  marvellous  is  the  expressed,  but  the 
unexpressed  is  better.  Behind  all  we  see  looms  up 
that  which  is  yet  to  be  seen.      The    world's    great 

44 


The  Inner  Life 

wonders  are  yet  to  come.  We  see  now  all  we  are 
equal  to  seeing.  But  we  are  linked  to  a  spiritual  realm 
which  is  ceaselessly  at  work  upon  our  soul  and  its 
faculties.  With  their  growth  our  universe  will  grow. 
That  is,  it  will  reveal  itself,  opening  up  its  mysteries, 
showing  the  wonders  of  its  hidden  beauty,  exhibiting 
itself  ever  more  clearly  as  the  visible  garment  of  God. 


MAN'S  RELATION  TO  GOD 

There  is  only  one  relation  high  enough  and  broad 
enough  to  reach  all  the  necessities  of  the  soul's  Hfe. 
It  is  our  conscious  relation  to  a  holy  God.  When, 
from  a  personal  experience,  we  have  learned  what  this 
means  for  our  daily  conduct  of  affairs,  for  our  attitude 
towards  living  and  dying,  towards  the  buffets  of 
circumstance,  towards  the  uncertainties  of  the  future, 
towards  our  intercourse  with  our  fellows,  towards  our 
inner  conquests  and  defeats,  the  wonder  grows  in 
us  that  any  mortal  of  us  should  attempt  to  get  on 
without  it.  It  is  so  constant  and  effective  a  solution 
of  our  difficulties.  "  Stand  in  your  relation  to  God," 
and  instantly  your  duty  appears  to  you  ;  instantly 
you  can  size  up  your  personal  worth,  knowing,  as 
St.  Francis  put  it,  that  "  we  are  just  as  great  as  we  are 
in  God's  sight." 

From  this  standpoint  we  see  ranged  in  line,  and  in 
their  due  proportion,  the  world's  values,  material  and 
spiritual.  Here,  in  a  realm  of  change,  we  find  our 
welcome,  our  immovable  rest.  Here  is  perpetual 
companionship,  the  heart's  sweetest  intercourse. 
Standing   here   we   know   ourselves   at   the   meeting- 

45 


Selections  from  Brierley 

point  of  all  noblest  influences.  We  touch  new  realms 
of  being  ;   have  companionship  with 

"  The  great  intelligences  fair 
That  range  above  our  mortal  state." 

We  are  where  the  great,  the  heroic  things  are  done  ; 
in  touch  with  the  "  one  great  society  alone  on  earth, 
the  noble  Hving  and  the  noble  dead."  There  are  we 
in  the  soul's  home,  its  sure  abiding  place,  from  which 
not  time  nor  death  will  separate  it.  In  contemplation 
of  this  supreme  relationship  we  find  ourselves  saying 
with  Augustine  :  "I  desire  to  know  God  and  the  soul. 
Nothing  else  ?     Nothing  at  all." 


ON  DIVINE  LEADING 

The  religion  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  above  all 
things  a  democratic  religion.  "  The  hairs  of  your  head 
are  all  numbered  "  applied  not  only  to  patrician  locks 
but  to  the  unkempt  polls  of  the  fishers  who  heard  first 
the  Divine  words.  It  was,  indeed,  the  eager  acceptance 
and  handing-on  of  the  doctrine  by  the  "  dim  common 
populations  "  that  so  excited  the  wrath  of  its  "  superior" 
opponents. 

Yet  this  doctrine  of  the  highest  guidance  for  every 
mother's  son  of  us  is  really  the  only  one  this  side 
atheism.  The  doctrine  is  so  logical.  Any  one  who, 
under  good  scientific  guidance,  has  examined  the  struc- 
ture of  a  human  hair,  has  to  say  whether  this  marvel  is  a 
product  of  bhnd  chance  or  of  a  high  intelligence.  If  it 
is  intelligence  which  made  it  and  is  still  looking  after  it, 
then,  a  fortiori,  intelligence  is  looking  also  after  its 
wearer.     It  is  amazing  we  do  not  more  definitely  settle 

46 


The  Inner   Life 

this  matter  with  ourselves.  It  would  resolve  so  many 
questions.  We  should  go  on  working,  but  leave  off 
worrying.  As  it  is,  we  imagine  the  world  is  on  our 
shoulders.  We  groan  over  the  condition  of  the  Church 
and  the  back  ebb  in  which  religion  finds  itself.  If  we 
believe  in  the  sermon  our  own  hair  teaches  us  as  we  brush 
it  of  mornings  we  shall  stop  this  lamentation.  As  if 
rehgion  began  when  we  took  up  its  business  and  will  end 
when  we  retire  !  Of  the  amazing  tricks  men  resort  to, 
in  the  notion  that  thereby  they  are  keeping  rehgion 
going,  there  will  also  be  a  final  end. 

It  is  in  the  bearing  of  this  doctrine  on  our  personal 
life  that  it  gains  its  weightiest  import.  If  a  man  can 
only  get  some  reasonable  assurance  that  in  this  welter 
of  a  world  he  is  not  left  to  fight  his  own  battle,  or  to 
muddle  his  way  through  as  best  he  can,  unhelped  or 
unguided  !  What  for  the  twentieth  century  is  the 
assurance  on  this  point  ?  Apart  from  the  consideration 
just  urged  the  evidence  is  of  two  sorts,  an  external  and 
an  internal.  In  that  first,  outward  sphere,  there  is  to 
be  noted  what  strikes  us  as  a  feature  most  significant 
and  affecting.  It  is  that  the  evidence  is  usually  reserved 
to  the  period  when  it  is  most  needed. 

The  evidence  we  go  upon  is  often  such  as  we  cannot 
talk  about,  and  which  would  appear  by  itself  quite  in- 
adequate in  a  law  court.  It  was  not  meant  for  the  law 
court,  but  for  ourselves.  It  is  its  mysterious  inner 
appeal  to  us  that  counts.  The  conviction  of  a  guidance 
of  our  outward  life  will  grow  in  proportion  as  we  reafise 
a  guidance  of  the  inward  life.  Precisely  as  a  man  who 
devotes  himself  to  the  culture  of  his  intellect  will  rise 
to  a  plane  superior  to  that  of  the  mass  and  bring  to  the 
decision  of  questions  a  faculty  of  which  they  are  scarcely 

47 


Selections  from  Brierley 

conscious,  so  in  the  most  central  sphere  a  similar  devo- 
tion will  yield  a  like  result,  only  a  higher.  To  those 
who  lodge  in  the  soul's  uppermost  chambers  there  opens 
a  prospect  unseen  by  those  below,  unbelieved  in  by 
these  latter,  may  be,  but  none  the  less  real. 

Our  own  soul,  in  its  solitary  journey,  if  faithful  to  the 
highest  in  it,  becomes  ever  more  conscious  of  a  Divine 
leading.  Its  transitions  are  progresses,  successive  dis- 
closures of  the  revelation  that  goes  on  within.  The 
outer  universe,  opening  to  us  at  every  turn  its  new 
exhaustless  energies,  reveals  itself  as  symbol  and  faint 
expression  of  a  Diviner  universe  behind.  More  sure  do 
we  become,  as  the  years  pass,  that  our  intellect  is  fed 
from  a  higher  intellect,  that  our  heart  draws  its  inspira- 
tion from  a  greater  heart.  As  surely  as  our  bodily  eye 
opens  to  us  a  visible  world  of  matter  and  force,  so  surely 
does  the  soul's  eye  reveal  one  whose  powers  are  higher. 
As  surely  as  holiness  is  greater  than  gravitation,  so 
surely  is  the  kingdom  of  holiness  the  real  and  enduring 
kingdom.  Our  greatest  knowledge  is  our  knowledge  of 
values.  The  highest  in  us  points  to  the  highest  without 
us.  Science  knows  that  God  is  Power  ;  the  soul  knows 
that  God  is  Love. 


THE  TRUEST  REST 

Through  the  whole  universe  of  matter  there  is  no 
moment's  cessation  of  activity  ;  nor  is  there  any  in  our 
physical  organisation.  Plainly,  if  we  are  to  discover 
some  semblance  of  reality  in  our  idea  of  rest,  we  must 
seek  it  elsewhere.  Where  ?  The  answer  is  in  the  inner 
realm  of  the  mind.  But  here  our  first  discovery  is  that 
within,  as  well  as  outside,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an 

48 


The  Inner  Life 

inactive  rest.  Let  anyone  "  descend  into  himself  "  and 
he  will  find  that  it  is  not  in  movement,  in  action,  but  in 
the  opposite  of  it,  that  his  soul  is  farthest  from  peace. 
The  trying  moment  for  the  regiment  is  not  in  the  charge, 
but  before,  when  lying  down  and  waiting  the  order  to 
advance.  Many  great  public  speakers  mix  Gethsemane 
with  every  speech.  But  that  comes  not  in  delivery,  but 
the  time  that  preceded.  When  actually  on  their  feet, 
with  mind  and  body  in  highest  activity,  the  soul  is 
entirely  at  rest.  It  is  not  the  employed,  but  the  unem- 
ployed, in  whom  we  find  the  completest  mental  chaos, 
the  furthest  remove  from  tranquillity. 

Rest  consists  nowhere,  either  in  nature  or  in  the  mind 
of  man,  in  a  mere  motionless  inactivity.  In  both  it 
must  be,  if  it  exists  at  all,  a  concomitant  of  action.  As 
Nature  climbs  higher  in  her  achievements,  the  more 
deUcate  is  the  balancing  by  which  her  rest  states  are 
obtained.  It  is  a  magnificent  result,  surely,  of  her 
engineering  which  secures  that  a  planet  like  our  own, 
the  centre  of  such  stupendous  forces,  should  have  every- 
thing within  and  without  so  exquisitely  adjusted  that 
while  careering  in  space  at  Hghtning  speed  over  half  a 
dozen  courses  at  once,  it  should  appear  to  its  inhabitants 
as  absolutely  still. 

All  this  is  reproduced  and  surpassed  in  the  soul.  It  is 
absurd  to  talk  of  peace  as  though  it  were  a  single  pro- 
duct. There  are  as  many  forms  of  peace  as  there  are 
of  men,  and  you  may  judge  a  man  by  the  kind  of  peace 
he  achieves.  There  need,  for  instance,  no  great  forces 
to  produce  the  "  rest  "  of  Clough's  jesting  fines  : 

"  Let  me,  contented  and  mute,  with  the  beasts  of  the  field, 
my  brothers, 
Tranquilly,   happily  lie — and  eat  grass  like  Nebuchad- 
nezzar^! " 

49  ^ 


Selections  from  Brierley 

Above  this  lies  the  rest  of  philosophic  indifference. 
It  has  some  famous  watchwords.  There  is  Plato's 
dictum  that  "  nothing  in  human  affairs  is  worth  any 
great  anxiety  "  ;  and  Ovid's  "  non  est  tanti  " — "  it  is 
not  worth  so  much  trouble  "  ;  and  Lord  Melbourne's 
"  Why  can't  you  let  it  alone  ?  "  All  this  brings 
undoubtedly  a  peace  of  a  sort.  But  it  is  a  wintry  peace, 
with  snow  on  the  ground  and  the  streams  frozen. 

What  then  is  the  highest  peace  ?  We  have  worked 
along  this  long  line  of  illustration  in  order  to  reach  a 
point  from  wliich  at  last  we  may  view  it.  The  greatest 
achievement  ol  Hfe,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  is  the  produc- 
tion in  souls  of  what  the  world's  greatest  book  calls 
"  the  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding." 
Greatest,  because  it  is  the  higheet  product  of  the  highest 
forces,  acting  at  their  highest  level. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  world  or  in  history  to  compare 
with  this.  We  talk  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  or  of  the 
Treaty  of  Paris.  They  are  trivialities  compared  with 
the  peace  God  creates  in  consecrated  souls.  Nature's 
whole  scheme  is  a  parable  of  this  highest  result.  The 
world  spinning  in  vacuo,  its  enormous  burden  upheld 
by  a  power  invisible,  is  her  visible  sign  of  this  crowning 
wonder.  Peace  in  the  battle,  rest  in  the  whirlwind — 
this  is  the  miracle  of  the  ages,  the  miracle  wrought  by 
Christ's  Gospel  in  the  hearts  of  men. 

THE  ATHLETICS  OF   THE  SOUL 

To-day  the  masses  and  the  classes  alike  sacrifice  to 
the  great  god  Comfort.  We  want  a  hfe  with  all  the 
corners  rubbed  off,  and  find  a  deadly  dulness  as  the 
result.     When  our  ease  is  broken  we  howl,  or  perhaps 

50 


The  Inner  Life 

blaspheme.  Marcus  Aurelius  from  his  pagan  philosophy 
could  teach  us  so  much  better  than  that.  And  our 
natural  instinct  revolts  in  its  innermost  self  against  the 
hog  paradise. 

"  Nor  for  thy  neighbours,  nor  for  thee, 
Be  sure  was  Ufe  designed  to  be 
A  draught  of  dull  complacency." 

How  magnificent,  in  comparison,  have  been  the  per- 
formances here  of  God's  athletes  !  It  should  surely  be 
good  news  for  us,  in  this  stormy  world,  to  know  of  a 
discipline  that  can  make  men  buffet-proof,  a  secret 
wliich,  when  learned,  sends  them  unhurt  and  exultant 
through  the  worst  that  comes  !  That  it  is  so  is  plain 
history.  When  John  Woolman  went  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  a  tribe  of  hostile  Indians,  he  tells  us  that  one 
night,  far  from  tent  or  habitation,  unable  to  kindle  a 
fire  because  of  the  heavy  rain  that  was  falling,  he  sat 
under  a  bush  during  the  long  hours,  and  "  found  his 
soul  filled  with  comfort  as  he  meditated  upon  God." 

The  power  of  the  religious  teacher,  whatever  his 
Church  or  his  position  in  it,  will  be  strictly  in  accordance 
with  his  proficiency  in  the  soul's  athletics.  Men  talk  of 
originahty  in  the  pulpit — make  often  grotesque  and 
frantic  efforts  to  acquire  it.  The  only  originality 
worth  the  name  is  that  of  a  growing  soul.  There  is  no 
preacher  worth  his  salt  whose  greatest  daily  work  is 
not  here.  It  is  the  training  of  his  own  spirit  that  con- 
stantly freshens  and  enlarges  him.  The  hearer  is 
thrilled  by  something  undefinable.  It  is  the  new  power 
evolved  from  a  soul's  ascent.  Unless  this  process  is 
going  on,  a  man  were  better  dumb.  Think  of  Christ's 
couple  of  years  or  so  of  ministry,  and  thirty  previous 
years  of  silent  inwardness  !     In   their  Hbraries  men 

51  D2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

may  find  new  facts  and  new  arguments  ;  but  these  will 
be  useless  unless  in  the  deeps  of  their  own  spirit  they 
seek  for  new  powers. 

Anyone,  layman  or  cleric,  who  sets  forth  on  this 
quest,  will  come  speedily  to  a  point  where  we  may  here 
leave  him.  He  will  find  that  his  own  solitary  strength 
is  nothing.  For  in  the  spiritual  world,  as  in  the  natural, 
a  man  becomes  strong  only  as  he  links  himself  to  the 
great  outside  powers.  Science  malces  him  mighty  by 
harnessing  his  personality  to  the  cosmic  forces.  Faith 
makes  him  mightier  yet  by  linking  his  feebleness  to 
Divine  Omnipotence. 


THE  UPWARD    WAY 

As  we  survey  history  and  literature,  and  note  the  way 
of  thinking  and  feeling  of  our  fellows  ages  ago,  we  dis- 
cern at  once  a  difference  so  great  that  it  points  to  the 
emergence  in  the  mind  of  at  least  the  germs  of  new 
faculties.  The  mind  of  man,  we  perceive,  is  steadily 
being  remade.  There  has  come  to  the  modern  con- 
sciousness a  faculty  we  fail  to  discern  earlier,  in  the  shape 
of  what  is  frequently  called  "  the  historical  sense."  By 
that  we  mean  the  power  of  realising  the  past  exactly  as 
it  was,  of  placing  bygone  ages  in  the  dry  light  of 
actuality,  of  cutting  clean  through  the  enormous  and 
fantastic  structures  which  the  human  imagination  has 
constructed  round  certain  events,  and  reaching  the 
bare,  simple  fact. 

It  is  to  the  appearance  and  steady  growth  of  this 
new  faculty  that  we  may  look  for  changes  of  the  vastest 
consequence  in  the  domain  of  man's  relations  with  the 
past,  in  the  domain,  that  is  to  say,  of  history  and 

52 


The  Inner  Life 

religion.  The  earlier  mind  could  not  see  clearly  if  it  would. 
The  medium  in  which  it  worked  was  so  charged  with 
preconceptions,  with  unscientific  views  of  the  universe, 
that  it  had  no  means  of  reaching  the  actual  fact.  It  is 
a  new  mental  development  which  compels  the  modern 
mind,  in  contrast  with  all  this,  to  judge  of  the  occur- 
rences of  the  first  century  by  the  occurrences  of  our 
own  ;  and  to  be  perfectly  sure  that  nothing  happened 
in  Judsea  at  that  or  any  other  time  that  might  not 
happen  in  London  or  New  York  in  our  own.  We  are  only 
beginning  dimly  to  recognise  the  changes  in  our  thought- 
world  that  the  rise  and  operation  of  this  faculty  will 
accomplish.  We  see  enough,  however,  to  be  aware  that 
it  will  make  all  things  new.  We  develop  by  effort,  by 
struggle.  It  is  under  strain  and  pressure  that  the 
organism  evolves. 

Anyone  who  realises  that  simple  fact  should  see  in  it 
an  all-sufficient  reason  for  the  arduous,  the  strenuous 
life.  And  that  to  its  very  close.  The  law  which  bids 
us  "  scorn  delights  and  five  laborious  days,"  which 
assures  us  that 

"  Mortals  miss 
Fair  prospects  by  a  level  bliss," 

is  the  very  central  law  of  life.  To  preserve  our  facul- 
ties at  their  topmost  level  by  constant  work  ;  to  abhor 
and  keep  from  the  ruts  of  luxurious  ease  ;  to  welcome 
the  opportunity  of  sacrifice,  the  doing  of  things  that 
crucify  the  flesh  ;  to  maintain  in  every  department  the 
strict  subordination  of  lower  to  higher,  of  animal  to 
spiritual — this  we  are  coming  now  to  recognise  is  not 
only  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  Gospel ;  it  is 
seen  by  science  to  be  the  one  and  only  way  upward. 

53 


Selections  from  Brierley 

SPECIAL    PROVIDENCES 

"  Unless  the  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  numbered 
there  is  no  God."  The  words  are  George  MacDonald's, 
and  they  put  the  challenge  to  faith  in  its  clearest  and 
boldest  form.  We  all  want  to  believe  that  our  hairs 
are  numbered  ;  that  we  are  the  objects  of  a  special 
loving  care.  In  Christendom  for  long  ages  the  idea  of  a 
special  Providence  was  sustained  by  accounts  of  miracu- 
lous occurrences.  The  sign  of  God's  care  over  human 
lives  was  in  His  surpassing  or  contradicting  the  known 
laws  of  nature.  A  successful  battle,  no  matter  in  what 
infamous  cause  it  has  been  won,  has  invariably  been 
followed  by  ecclesiastical  Te  Deums.  The  faith  in 
Providence  as  a  sort  of  special  relief  agent,  to  be  called 
on  at  all  hours  of  day  and  night,  was  perhaps  never  more 
naively  expressed  than  in  the  story  of  an  old  negro,  who 
during  an  earthquake  at  Charleston  prayed  as  follows  : 
"  Good  Lord,  come  and  help  us  ;  oh,  come  now.  And 
come  Yo'self,  Lord  ;  'taint  no  time  for  boys  !  "  Our 
suppHant  behcved  in  help  at  first  hand.  He  had  a 
healthy  distrust  of  intermediaries. 

Views  of  this  kind  still  hold  their  ground  over  a  very 
wide  area,  but  to  most  intelligent  people  they  are  no 
longer  satisfactory  ones.  The  faith  in  a  special  Provi- 
dence which  is  possible  to  our  time,  and  to  all  times,  is 
then  a  faith  which  resides  in  the  spiritual  realm,  which 
springs  out  of  our  spiritual  instincts  and  afhnities  ; 
which  works  in  a  sphere  that  transcends  Nature,  which 
accepts  her  laws,  even  in  their  hardest  expressions,  as 
ministering  to  its  development.  We  say  this  in  face  of 
all  the  objections.  Why,  with  a  good  and  omnipotent 
God,  is  not  our  world  more  perfect ;  why  weakness  and 

54 


The  Inner  Life 

disease,  when  with  such  powers  abroad  in  the  universe 
there  might  have  been  strength  and  health  ?  Why  has 
a  state  of  society  been  permitted  in  which  the  rich  rob 
the  poor  ;  in  which  the  hardest  work  is  done  for  the 
worst  pittance ;  in  which  we  have  homes  of  one  room  ? 
That  is  to  say,  supposing  God  had  done  everything  for 
us  !  Would  that  have  been  a  better  condition  than  the 
one  in  which  we  find  ourselves ;  one  in  which  we  are 
invited  to  find  out  things,  and  to  do  things  for  ourselves  ? 
A  paradise  with  nothing  to  do  might  be  a  paradise  for 
somebody  else  to  admire  ;  it  would  be  no  place  for  an 
eager  soul  to  find  itself  in. 

The  whole  scheme,  indeed,  is  one  whose  primal  object 
— for  which  all  else  is  risked  and  even  sacrificed — is  a 
scheme  for  the  development  of  human  spirits,  and  that 
by  leaving  man  to  do  all  that  he  can  do.  He  is  not 
to  be  coddled — to  be  furnished  with  crutches  when  he 
can  use  his  own  muscles  and  limbs.  The  school-boy 
who  finds  a  companion  to  do  all  his  sums  for  him  may 
regard  his  helper  as  a  special  providence.  But  he  is  not 
a  good  providence.  Why  should  man  be  cured  by 
miracle  of  his  diseases  ?  Let  him  learn  to  cure  himself. 
That  will  give  him  not  only  health  but  the  laws  of  health 
— so  much  larger  a  possession.  His  difficulties,  his 
miseries — what  are  they  but  a  perpetual  challenge  to 
try  again  ? 

The  human  freedom,  with  all  the  risk  of  using  it 
wrongly,  is  better  than  no  freedom.  The  soul  can  grow 
under  no  other  conditions.  Man  must  put  out  to  sea, 
even  with  the  chance  of  wreckage,  for  he  will  never 
become  a  sailor  by  remaining  in  port.  And  our  faith 
goes  so  far  as  to  beheve  that  in  this  human  voyage  even 
his  wreckage  will  not  ruin  him.     For  man's  worst  has 

55 


Selections  from  Brierley 

its  limitations  and  contains  in  itself  some  subtle  seed 
of  recovety. 

Yes,  the  hairs  of  our  head  are  all  numbered.  When- 
ever we  pray  we  affirm  that.  And  we  can  match  this 
affirmation,  in  our  being's  highest  act,  against  all  the 
materialisms  and  all  the  devil's  advocacies,  from  what- 
ever quarter  they  come.  For  the  soul  here  is  sure  of 
itself.  It  moves  here  in  a  sphere  the  world  cannot 
enter,  still  less  conquer.  Quis  separahit  ?  In  face  of 
life's  sternest  tragedies,  of  its  utmost  extremities,  it 
joins  in  the  Apostle's  triumphant  hymn  of  faith, 
knowing  with  him  that  neither  life  nor  death,  things 
present  nor  things  to  come,  can  shut  it  off  from  the 
Infinite  Love. 

ON  THE  SICK-BED 

In  a  severe  illness,  when  the  hfe-force  ebbs  to  a  low 
point,  Nature  rehearses  the  fmal  scene  for  us,  and  shows 
us  how  easy  a  thing  it  \\dll  be  to  die.  A  healthy  nature, 
that  enjoys  living,  will,  when  the  time  comes,  enjoy 
dying.  We  recognise  it  as  part  of  the  general  scheme  ; 
a  kindly  scheme,  which  does  not  cease  to  be  kind  in  this 
final  incident.  We  see  with  Browne  in  his  "  Religio 
Medici  "  that  "  we  are  happier  with  death  than  we 
should  have  been  without  it."  Death  is,  in  fact,  a  trump 
card  which  Nature  holds  for  us,  and  which  she  will  play 
in  our  interest  at  the  right  moment.  And  this  convic- 
tion comes  upon  us  without  any  complications  from 
theology.  Illness  is  non-theological.  The  sick  man 
knows,  if  no  one  else  does,  that  the  most  heated  dis- 
putes in  this  sphere  have  little  or  no  contact  with 
reality  ;  that  they  are  a  logomachy  with  which  he  need 
not  trouble  himself.      Nature  is  not  much  of  an  eccle- 

56 


The  Inner  Life 

siastic.  She  brought  us  into  the  world  in  her  own 
homely  fashion,  without  formulae,  and  will  take  us  out 
of  it  under  similar  conditions. 

All  the  same,  she  is  not  mocker,  nor  atheist.  The 
space  she  clears  for  us  from  the  Church  controversies 
leaves  the  more  room  for  rehgion.  In  these  hours  of 
seclusion,  shut  off  from  the  roaring  world,  we  find  our- 
selves in  communion  with  the  ultimate  reahties.  We 
are  in  love  with  the  heights.  We  find  our  kinship  with 
all  who  have  loved,  who  have  aspired,  who  have 
suffered.  Familiar  words  from  the  great  souls  who 
have  known  God  come  back  to  us  with  an  altogether 
ravishing  sweetness.  Our  soul  dwells  in  Holy  Land. 
We  walk  in  Gahlee  and  hear  the  Beatitudes  ;  we  are 
admitted  to  Gethsemane ;  we  learn  the  secret  of 
Calvary.  We  know  all  this  not  simply  as  history 
written  in  a  book,  but  as  the  human  history  that  is 
written  in  our  own  spirit.  Here  is  the  road  that  souls 
have  travelled  from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  and 
where  they  have  found  victory. 

It  is  for  most  of  us  a  happy  experience  to  come  back 
again  from  that  weird  by-path  where  we  have  spent 
the  painful  weeks,  and  to  find  ourselves  once  more 
amid  the  joyous  bustle  of  the  main  route.  Whence, 
by  what  mysterious  processes  does  it  come  to  us,  this 
returning  strength  ?  From  rest  and  from  movement, 
from  the  spring  breath,  from  wind  and  sun,  it  streams 
in  upon  us.  Day  by  day  the  perspective  changes. 
The  old  interests,  the  old  preoccupations  revive  and 
resume  their  sway.  We  are  becoming  once  more 
pohticians,  controversiaHsts,  shareholders,  sportsmen, 
and  the  hundred  other  things  that  made  up  the  old 
life.     The  world  which  has  shown  how  easily  it  can 

57 


Selections  from  Brierley 

do  without  us  gives  us,  nevertheless,  a  good-humoured 
welcome  back.  Best  of  all,  it  shows  us  the  niche  where 
we  can  still  do  some  of  its  work.  Well  will  it  be  for  us 
if,  as  we  tread  the  old  route,  we  con  diligently  and  lodge 
safe  in  our  memories  the  signs  written  in  the  earth  and 
sky  of  that  other  bit  of  country  we  have  been  passing 
through.  A  sorry  thing  if,  after  that  experience,  we 
remain  still  without  a  sense  of  the  true  proportion  of 
things  ;  if  we  have  not  learned  to  estimate  all  the 
world  offers  at  its  proper  value  ;  if  we  have  not  with 
Chalmers,  after  the  illness  which  changed  his  life,  been 
made  to  perceive  the  "  Httleness  of  time  and  the 
greatness  of  eternity." 


THE  ATMOSPHERE  OF  THE  SOUL 

In  these  later  ages  the  world  has  developed  a  new- 
sense,  that  of  climate.  We  have  become  mightily 
fastidious  in  breathing.  We  pay  any  price  for  an 
atmosphere.  In  the  sights  it  flashes  on  the  retina,  in 
the  fragrances  with  which  it  intoxicates,  in  the  secret 
vigours  it  conveys,  we  find  some  of  life's  choicest  gifts. 

And  as  certainly  as  does  our  physical  organism  so 
certainly  does  our  spiritual  self  live  by  the  air  it 
breathes.  But  the  analysis  of  the  one  atmosphere  is 
not  nearly  so  easy  as  that  of  the  other.  When  we  talk 
of  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  carbon  and  nitrogen,  of  the 
atomic  theory  and  of  the  law  of  combining  proportions, 
we  are  in  the  sphere  of  weights  and  measures,  of  the 
accurately  calculable.  It  is  a  more  dimly-lighted 
region  we  enter  when  we  reach  this  other  side,  and 
our  measuring  instruments  are  all  to  seek.     We  are 

58 


The  Inner  Life 

stumbling  up  against  dim  perceptions,  adumbrations 
of  truths  which,  while  they  impress  with  their  grandeur, 
leave  us  only  a  vague  sense  of  their  outline  and  content. 
As  our  planet  is  immersed  in  a  deep,  dense  sea  of  air, 
that  plays  incessantly  through  our  organism  and  carries 
in    itself    mysterious    potencies    which    we    are    just 
beginning  to  discern,  so  is  our  thought-world  to-day 
surrounded  by  its  ether,  not  less  pervasive  and  potent. 
We  cannot  tell  its  whole  content,  or  the  whole  method 
of  its  operation.     It  consists,  partly  at  least,  of  ideas 
and  of  influences  that  have  for  ages  been  accumulating. 
And    this    inner    atmosphere,    accessible    from    all 
worlds,  has  also  its  sun.     The  soul's  system  has  its 
centre   as   surely   as   the  planetary.     The  history   of 
reHgion  is  the  history  of  the  soul's  gravitation  to  the 
centre,  its  aspiration  for  its  birthplace.     The  saints 
have  put  this  aspiration  into  every  language.     Jacob 
Behmen's  words  on  the  new  birth  stand  as  a  type  of  the 
whole  human  movement  here.     His  account  of  the 
soul  as  a  light  originating  in   the  Father's  essence, 
lumen  de  Inmine,  imprisoned  in  darkness,  feeling  "  a 
fire  of  anguish,"  until  its  longing  for  the  Hght  is  satisfied 
by  God's  witness  in  it,  when  there  arises  within  "  a 
sweetness  of  rest  and  peace,"  is  the  common  story  from 
Plato  and  St.  John  to  George  Fox  and  to  William  Law. 
The  question  of  the  soul's  atmosphere  has,  however, 
another  side.     We  do  not  merely  draw  from  it.     We 
also  contribute  to  it,  and  it  is  here  that  perhaps  the 
chief  significance  of  our  life  exhibits  itself.     We  are 
pouring  out  powers  that  create  or  destroy.     If  waves 
of  force,  flowing  from  physical  centres,  flash,  as  we 
know  they  do,  through  atmospheres,   and  penetrate 
every  form  of  matter,  who  shall  estimate  the  effect 

59 


Selections  from  Brierley 

of  the  forces  emanating  from  our  spirit  centres,  that 
beat  upon  our  brother's  thought  and  will  ? 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  we  best  study  the 
significance  of  prayer.  When  a  mother  wrestles  in 
spirit  for  her  child,  or  a  friend  for  his  friend,  we  have 
at  work  the  highest  and  the  purest  force  the  world 
knows.  And  the  results  ?  We  may  not  see  them. 
But  unless  all  the  discoveries  both  of  the  physical  and 
the  spiritual  universe  are  in  a  conspiracy  to  deceive  us, 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  the  certaint}^  of  these 
results.  The  forces  here  unlocked  may  have  a  circuit 
as  wide  as  that  of  a  comet,  but  they  will  not  waste 
themselves  nor  fail  of  their  goal. 

From  this  standpoint,  too,  we  could  best  discuss  the 
whole  life  of  the  Church.  Its  business  is  to  create  an 
atmosphere.  More  than  its  assertion  of  dogma,  more 
than  the  perfecting  of  its  ritual,  is  its  function  of  filhng 
the  area  of  its  influence  with  an  air  which  the  poor, 
poisoned  soul  of  humanity,  as  it  inhales  the  oxygen 
and  warms  to  the  sunshine,  sliall  reahse  as  the  Divine 
it  has  panted  for,  the  very  breath  of  God. 

VICARIOUS  CONSECRATION 

One  of  the  most  significant,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most 
pathetic,  things  in  history  has  been  men's  ceaseless 
quest  after  the  good.  So  eager  has  been  their  search 
for  saints  and  sainthood  that  where  they  could  not 
find  what  they  sought  they  have  invented  it.  The 
hagiologies,  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  with  their  super- 
natural embellishments,  their  impossible  idealisings — 
what  are  they  but  the  expression  of  the  world's 
impatient  expectation  of   a   Diviner  light  that  is  to 

60 


The  Inner  Life 

break  upon  it  out  of  human  character  ?  When  men 
find  such  a  gleam,  how  eagerly  they  follow  it  !  How 
the  common  human  heart  vibrates  to  that  saying  of  the 
Italian  peasant  to  Francis  of  Assisi,  "  Art  thou  brother 
Francis  of  Assisi  ?  "  "  Yes  !  "  "  Try,  then,  to  be  as 
good  as  all  think  thee  to  be,  because  many  have  great 
faith  in  thee,  and  therefore  I  admonish  thee  to  be 
nothing  less  than  people  hope  of  thee."  Such  a 
person  is,  in  fact,  felt  to  be  the  possessor  and  free 
distributor  of  immeasurable  wealth.  He  is  the 
discoverer  of  a  new  paradise,  and  men  flock  to  breathe 
its  celestial  air. 

As  our  inward  development  goes  on  we  find  ourselves 
laid  hold  of  by  a  secret  imperious  demand  to  this 
higher  helpfulness.  "  For  their  sakes  "  we,  too,  are 
"  to  sanctify  ourselves."  Humanity  has  a  claim  upon 
us  to  be  and  do  our  very  best,  that  we  also  may  add 
to  the  sum  of  the  invisible  Good.  By  our  value  we 
increase  the  value  of  all  mankind.  The  noble  motto, 
"  Non  inferior  a  secuius  "  is  not  fully  realised  till  we 
have  learned  not  only  to  follow  the  higher  things,  but 
to  follow  them  from  more  than  a  personal  motive. 

Vicarious  consecration  should  be  a  watchword  for 
us  all.  Fathers  and  mothers  are  the  moral  trustees 
of  the  family.  Failure  of  character  defrauds  their 
children  of  the  best  part  of  their  heritage.  The  pastor 
and  rehgious  teacher  is  a  trustee  on  a  yet  larger  scale. 
For  such  a  man  to  fail  of  the  highest  is  a  public  mis- 
fortune, while  an  actual  fall  is  worse  than  if  the  bank 
had  broken.  The  malversation  of  funds  is  greater, 
and  in  a  specie  that  cannot  be  replaced.  We  do 
not,  indeed,  know  the  full  hmits  of  our  trusteeship. 
We  trace  some  of  its  outlines  in  our  earthly  relations, 

6i 


Selections  from  Brierley 

but  these  are  not  the  only  ones.     A  wider  reach  is 
suggested  in  those  awesome  Hnes  of  Tennyson  : 

"  Do  we  indeed  desire  the  dead 

Should  still  be  near  us  at  our  side  ? 
Is  there  no  baseness  we  would  hide, 
No  inner  vilencss  that  we  dread  ?  " 

Whether  we  look  up  or  down,  it  is  plain  there  is  no 
room  for  us  anywhere  except  in  goodness. 


THE  INNER  SECRET 

Our  innermost  yields  itself  only  to  kindred  spirits 
and  to  the  soHcitations  of  love.  A  man  going  into 
St.  Mark's,  Venice,  shall  find  it  discoursing  to  him 
according  to  his  degree  of  initiation.  If  he  be  entirely 
uneducated  it  may  impress  him  simply  as  a  glowing 
mass  of  form  and  colour.  Certainly  it  says  that  to  all 
who  come.  To  the  artist  it  has  far  more  to  com- 
municate. He  reads  miles  deeper  into  its  thought. 
But  even  he  may  miss  its  central  intention.  It  is 
to  the  sympathetic  believer,  and  to  him  alone,  that  it 
tells  its  whole  secret.  It  is  he  who  finds  in  these 
"  Stones  of  Venice,"  as  their  uttermost  meaning,  the 
Christian  Gospel. 

In  like  manner  it  is  with  that  vaster  fane  whose 
dome  is  the  starry  firmament,  and  whose  measurements 
are  infinity  and  eternity.  There  are  those,  the  careless 
and  unthinking,  to  whom  the  universe  discloses  only 
its  commoner  and  surface  meanings.  And  there  are, 
if  we  may  so  say,  God's  intimates,  to  whom  He  whispers 
His  finer  thoughts.  It  is  in  man,  the  microcosm,  in 
whom  all  the  universe  meets,  that  the  Divine  ideas 
chiefly  unfold  themselves,  and  that  in  proportion  as 

62 


The  Inner  Life 

his  receiving  surface  is  purified  and  expanded. 
Emerson  has  put  this  in  his  own  way  in  the  statement 
that  "  the  foundation  of  culture  as  of  character  is  at 
last  the  moral  sentiment.  If  we  live  truly  we  shall  see 
truly."  An  old  Enghsh  mystic  has  expressed  it 
quaintly,  yet  more  nearl}^  :  "  As  long  as  we  be  meddhng 
with  any  part  of  sin  we  shall  never  see  clearly  the 
blissful  cheer  of  our  Lord."  It  is  here,  indeed,  that  we 
have  the  secret  of  the  moral  authority  of  Jesus.  His 
absolute  purity  was  the  light  in  which  He  read  the  heart 
of  God.  He  saw  it  as  an  open  book.  He  spoke  with 
the  certitude  of  conscious  oneness  with  the  Divine. 
And  His  way  is  for  all  the  ages  and  all  the  worlds  the 
only  way  of  intimately  knowing  God.  By  mathematics 
and  chemistry  and  art  we  may  scrape  some 
acquaintance.  It  is  only  through  love  and  purity  and 
humihty  and  sacrifice  that  we  learn  the  inner  secret. 

THE  INNER  FACTOR 

In  our  religious  behef  and  life  the  determining 
factor  is  always  the  inner  factor.  You  repeat  the 
same  creed  to  a  thousand  people.  "They  all  say 
"  Amen  "  to  it  ]'  but  is  it  the  same  to  them  ?  They 
have  assented  to  a  thousand  different  creeds  ;  different 
with  all  the  varieties  of  their  separate  upbringing,  of 
their  knowledge  of  the  words  used,  of  the  mental  and 
moral  predispositions  they  bring  to  them.  The  out- 
side creed,  the  outside  ceremon}',  remain  the  same,  but 
the  inner  growth  of  the  soul  alters  perpetually  our 
relation.  To  the  same  Bible  come  a  Wesley  and  a 
Marat.  They  are  both  constant  readers  of  the  Bible. 
But  the  Enghsh  divine  brings  to  it  a  heart  yearning 

63 


Selections  from  Brierl 


ey 


with  compassion  for  his  fellows,  and  takes  from  it  a 
message  of  salvation  to  every  creature  ;  of  the  French 
revolutionist  we  read  :  "  There  was  Marat,  with  the 
Bible  always  before  him,  picking  out  texts  which 
justified  his  murders." 

And  we  shall  never  get  on  in  our  interpretation  of 
doctrine,  in  our  prognostic  of  the  future  of  reUgion, 
till  we  recognise  that  this  inner  movement  is  a  Divine 
movement,  the  personal,  the  eternal  revelation.  It  is 
this  Divine  consciousness  in  us,  ev^er  developing,  ever 
coming  to  clearer  affirmations,  which  is  steadily  ridding 
us  of  earlier  barbaric  conceptions  of  God  and  man. 
The  Divine  in  us,  whicli  is  teaching  us  the  omnipotence 
of  goodness,  the  limitlessness  of  love,  which  puts  us 
alongside,  inside,  of  our  fellow-man,  one  with  his 
innermost  feeling  and  need,  makes  it  impossible  for  us 
to  conceive  of  God  as  other,  as  less  than  that.  And 
so  away  go  all  doctrines  which  are  contrary  to  this  ; 
all  doctrines  which  imply  that  God  can  inflict  torture 
for  the  sake  of  torture ;  can  please  Himself  with 
another's  sufferings.  If  God  is  in  man,  eternal  punish- 
ment would  be  the  eternal  punishment  of  Himself ; 
He  would  be  Himself  the  eternal  sufferer  in  His  own 
hell ! 

While  the  soul,  in  its  inner  growth,  arrives,  in  these 
directions,  at  what  seems  denial,  the  chief  result  is  in 
great  affirmations.  We  hear  to-day  of  Christianity 
being  "  at  the  cross-roads."  The  New  Testament 
is  being  torn  in  pieces  at  the  hands  of  a  remorseless 
criticism.  The  four  Gospels  are  under  the  microscope. 
Upon  every  sentence,  every  word,  is  being  brought 
to  bear  the  fiercest  light  that  ever  played  on  human 
handiwork.     In  this  hght  we  are  asked  to  consider, 

64 


The  Inner  Life 

not  only  the  limitations  of  the  Gospel  writers,  but 
the  limitations  of  Him  whose  words  and  deeds  they 
record.     Taken  by  itself  it  is  a  disturbing  study. 

But  is  that  all  we  really  have  .-*  The  heart  knows 
better.  Jesus,  whatever  the  critics  make  of  Him, 
remains  for  ever  the  Creator  of  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness. He  remains  the  Creator  of  the  soul  of  to-day. 
From  the  Cross,  however  interpreted,  has  streamed 
out  a  force  of  love,  of  spiritual  power,  which  has  been 
the  life  of  the  later  world.  No  criticism  can  ever 
touch  the  inner  experiences  of  Paul,  of  Peter,  of 
Augustine,  of  Bernard,  of  Wesley,  of  Livingstone  ; 
of  the  myriad  unknown  ones  who  in  all  the  ages  have 
by  faith  overcome  the  world,  have  tasted  the  rapture 
of  the  spiritual  life.  With  Jesus  came  a  creation  of 
inner  values  which  no  destructive  dynamite  can  blow 
away.  Love,  joy,  peace,  gentleness,  meekness,  faith — 
here  is  an  ahment  on  which  souls  have  thriven  as  never 
before.  Here  are  riches  lodged  in  the  world's  heart, 
safe  from  assault,  where  no  moth  or  rust  can  corrupt, 
where  no  thieves  can  break  through  and  steal. 

Our  whole  success  or  failure  in  life  is  an  affair  of 
what  is  going  on  within  us.  The  outside  event  is, 
after  all,  so  little  of  it  outside.  It  takes  its  shape, 
colour,  quahty,  its  power  of  blessing  or  cursing,  from 
the  shape,  colour  and  quality  of  the  soul  in  us  that 
meets  it.  What  it  is,  first  and  last,  is  a  question  of 
what  you  are.  Present  a  /i,ooo  banknote  to  your 
dog,  and  it  would  perhaps  swallow  it  and  cough  its 
disgust.  The  Bodleian  library  is  to  a  scholar  the 
Bodleian.  What  would  it  be  to  an  Esquimaux  ?  The 
cross  of  the  blaspheming  thief  was,  we  suppose,  of  the 
same  wood  as  that  on  which  Christ  hung.     The  nails 

65  E 


Selections  from  Brierley 

were  of  the  same  penetrating  sharpness.  But  what  a 
different  story  they  told  !  It  was  the  difference — • 
incalculable — between  this  soul  and  its  neighbour. 
What  inwardness  are  you  to-day  offering  to  the  assault 
of  the  world's  outwardness  ?  To  this  scene  which 
surrounds  you  how  much  faith,  how  much  prayer, 
how  much  love  and  courage  are  you  bringing  ?  Here, 
in  your  inner  training,  in  your  central  thought,  is  the 
secret  of  victory.  We  come  back  to  the  words  of 
the  Imitatio  :  "  He  to  whom  all  things  are  one,  and 
who  draweth  all  things  to  one,  and  seeth  all  things  in 
one,  can  be  steadfast  in  heart  and  remain  peaceable 
in  God." 


66 


THE   SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE 


E  2 


THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIENCE 

TRUE  LIBERTY 

What  is  man's  proper  liberty,  as  an  individual 
and  as  a  member  of  society  ?  The  question  puzzles 
us  sorely.  Civilisation  has  burst  all  its  old  bonds. 
Within  the  last  century  vast  new  movements  have 
come,  revolutions  of  the  social  order,  which  have  upset 
our  old  notions,  and  are  compelling  a  rearrangement  of 
ideas. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  teacher  of  the  modern  world, 
for  good  or  ill,  is  the  Press,  and  it  is  worth  while  to 
consider  the  present  position  and  immediate  future 
of  the  Press.  The  newspaper  is  the  pulpit  of  to-day. 
But  a  new  condition  is  emerging,  full  of  menace  to  its 
best  work.  Its  liberty  is  threatened  by  capital  and 
monopoly.  Up  to  a  few  years  ago  the  Press  stood  as 
an  honest  record  of  opinion.  The  opinion  was  of 
various  kinds,  representing  all  shades  of  pohtical  and 
social  thinking.  The  great  newspapers  fought  for 
their  cause,  whatever  it  was.  But  to-day  capitalism 
is  swallowing  the  independent  newspaper.  The 
milHonaire  or  the  syndicate  buys  up  the  old  local 
organs  and  turns  them  into  a  multiple  megaphone, 
which  drowns  all  other  voices  in  its  deafening  preach- 
ment of  selfish  interests.  It  is  a  wondrous  spectacle — 
with  an  irresistibly  comic  side — this,  of  your  humble 

69 


Selections  from  Brierley 

wage-earner,  your  London  clerk,  devouring  morning  by 
morning  the  gospel  proclaimed  to  him  by  his  guide, 
the  multi-milhonaire.  One  wonders  what  will  be  the 
outcome.  Will  the  scholar,  the  original  thinker,  the 
man  of  conscience  and  conviction,  continue  in  the 
ranks,  or  be  drawn  to  them,  as  the  servants  of  such  a 
system,  or  will  journalism  be  reduced  to  a  mob  of 
hirelings,  ready  to  suppress  truth,  to  propagate  Hes, 
to  damn  their  own  souls  at  the  bidding  of  these 
masters  ?  The  symptoms  are  threatening,  but  we 
doubt  if  this  will  be  their  outcome.  The  nature  of 
things  is,  as  the  Americans  say,  up  against  it.  Truth, 
however  it  may  be  handicapped,  has  a  way  of  conquer- 
ing falsehood,  of  inflicting  upon  it  final  and  annihilating 
defeats. 

Thus  much  of  liberty  in  the  pulpit  outside  the 
Church.  What  of  the  pulpit  inside  it  ?  On  this 
theme  Jeremy  Taylor's  "  Liberty  of  Prophesying " 
might,  in  our  day,  be  read  with  much  profit  by  both 
preachers  and  hearers.  And  side  by  side  with  it  might 
be  taken  that  saying  of  one  of  the  noblest  of  Christian 
thinkers,  Pascal,  that  the  greatest  of  Christian  truths 
is  that  truth  be  loved  above  all.  We  have  hardly 
attained  that  virtue  yet.  Jowett  of  BaUiol,  when 
speaking  of  his  o\\ti  communion,  utters  what  seems  too 
sweeping  a  condemnation  when  he  says  :  "I  feel  con- 
vinced that,  sooner  or  later,  the  Church  of  England 
will  find  it  impossible  to  subsist  on  a  fabric  of  falsehood 
and  fiction."  But  there  has  been,  there  and  elsewhere, 
too  much  of  ecclesiastical  subterfuge.  Why  do  we 
talk  so  unctuously  of  "  Christian  truth  "  ?  Do  we 
need  the  adjective  ?  If  a  thing  is  true,  is  not  that 
enough  ?     If  it  is  not  true,  no  adjective  will  save  it. 

70 


The  Social  Conscience 

The  pulpit  will  only  hold  men  as  it  is  itself  held  by  the 
truth. 

In  our  separate  lives  the  true  Hberty  for  you  and  me 
is  the  hberty  to  grow  and  to  serve.  As  Cicero  puts  it, 
"  We  are  servants  of  all  the  laws  in  order  that  we  may 
be  free."  We  have  to  learn,  as  Frankhn  tells  us  he 
learned  from  his  early  excesses,  that  things  are  wrong 
not  because  they  are  prohibited,  but  prohibited 
because  they  are  wrong.  As  the  pianist  gets  his 
freedom  of  execution  by  obeying  all  the  rules,  so  we 
reach  the  liberty  of  our  universe  by  meeting  all  its 
requirements.  There  is  no  other  way  of  it ;  thus  and 
thus  only  do  we  reach  that  sphere  of  the  infinite  life 
which  an  apostle  has  described  for  us  as  "  the  glorious 
liberty  of  the  children  of  God." 


THE  REFORMATION  OF  CHARACTER 

Wherever  the  primitive  Gospel  has  been  proclaimed 
by  men  possessed  of  its  spirit,  however  crude  the 
mental  envelope  in  which  it  has  been  wrapped,  it 
has  exercised  this  extraordinary  power — the  power 
of  changing  men,  of  turning  them  upside  down 
and  inside  out.  It  has  accomphshed  the  fact  which 
Schopenhauer  declares  impossible — of  making  bad 
men  good. 

Amid  all  the  clashings  of  modern  behef  and  non- 
behef ;  amid  all  the  assaults  which  are  made  to-day 
on  the  citadel  of  religious  orthodoxy,  there  is  one 
thesis  about  which,  we  imagine,  all  fair-minded  men 
would  be  found  to  agree.  It  is  that  some  such  force 
as  this,  wherever  it  is  to  be  found,  is  the  one  thing 

71 


Selections  from  Brierley 

we  need  for  the  reorganisation  of  society,  for  the 
attainment  of  human  well-being.  Amid  all  our 
sciences  the  one  needed  science  is  that  of  making  men 
good.  It  is  an  age  of  machinery,  but  none  is  being 
invented  for  turning  brutal,  drunken,  wife-beating 
men  into  sober  citizens,  into  kind-hearted  builders  of 
homes.  Any  Socialist  who  can  see  farther  than  his 
nose-end  must  recognise  that  his  State  scheme,  however 
cleverly  organised,  can  come  to  nothing  so  long  as 
his  material  is  bad.  Is  there  in  the  whole  SociaHst 
machinery,  even  if  it  work  overtime,  a  means  of 
producing  "  love,  joy,  peace,  gentleness,  meekness, 
temperance,  faith  "  ?  Until  it  can,  it  must  cease 
boasting  of  being,  in  itself,  a  new  highway  into  the 
human  paradise. 

Wrapped  up  often  enough  in  crudest  forms, 
Christianity  has  nevertheless  vindicated  itself  as  the 
agent  of  that  greatest  of  miracles,  the  reformation  of 
character.  It  has  accomplished  the  one  thing  which 
neither  law,  nor  pohce,  nor  science,  nor  material 
conditions  has  been  able  to  achieve  ;  it  has  given  men 
in  all  circumstances,  even  the  worst,  the  sense  of 
inward  peace  and  blessedness.  Its  beginning  marked 
the  inflow  from  the  unseen  of  a  great,  unique  spiritual 
power.  It  was  the  impartation  to  man  of  a  new  deposit 
of  that  "  treasure  in  heaven  "  which  man  was  created 
to  receive,  and  which  waits  to  discover  itself  yet  more 
fully.  In  saying  this,  are  we  not  describing  what  is 
manifestly  the  Church's  supreme  function  ?  Its  one 
business  is  to  receive,  to  fill  itself  with  this  Divine  hfe, 
that  it  may  impart  it  to  men.  It  is  to  be  a  reservoir 
of  faith,  of  3037  and  strength,  that  may  flow  into  and 
heal  the  world's  broken  heart.   No  assault  of  scepticism 

72 


The  Social  Conscience 

can  touch  Christianity  so  long  as  it  remains  a  healer  of 
souls. 

TRUE  WEALTH 

One  of  the  results  of  the  new  idea  of  religion,  as  the 
whole  science  of  right  living,  is  the  necessity  it  imposes 
on  Christian  teachers  of  broadening  their  studies.  In 
this  view  all  great  Hterature,  all  true  science,  are  a 
part  of  theology  and  belong  to  its  curriculum.  And 
quite  indispensable  as  a  branch  of  that  learning,  lying 
as  it  does  at  the  root  of  our  vast  social  question,  and 
forming  thus  an  integral  feature  of  the  eternal  religion, 
is  the  study  of  Political  Economy. 

Such  a  study  will  give  us  some  sure  results,  and 
should  dissipate  a  good  many  mischievous  notions. 
It  will,  for  instance,  in  no  degree  diminish  our  sense 
of  the  value  of  wealth.  It  will,  instead,  clarify  our 
view  of  its  position  and  function.  We  shall  realise, 
in  the  words  of  a  modern  writer,  that  "  money  is  com- 
pressed force,"  and  force,  especially  "  compressed 
force,"  is,  we  know,  not  a  matter  to  be  trifled  with. 
And  there  is  a  legitimate  enjoyment  in  wealth. 
Theology  here  must  come  to  the  same  conclusion  as 
economics.  For  if  God  be  at  once  the  supremely 
Holy,  and  at  the  same  time  the  Possessor  of  all  things, 
there  can  be  no  intrinsic  evil  in  wealth.  We  are, 
indeed,  in  a  very  rich  universe,  with  invitations 
scattered  over  every  yard  of  its  surface  to  enter  boldly 
and  partake.  The  real  question  here  is,  "  On  what 
terms  and  for  what  end  ?  " 

And  here  we  come  straight  upon  Ruskin's  great 
governing  proposition,  that  "  there  is  no  wealth  but 
hfe."     A  career,  whether  it  be  of  twenty  or  of  ninety 

73 


Selections  from  Brierley 

years,  is  in  the  final  analysis  the  sum  of  its  thoughts, 
its  feehngs,  its  deeds.  To  get  the  best  in  these  kinds 
is  to  have  truly  lived.  To  secure  these  things  in  the 
largest  degree  for  the  community,  is  the  one  worthy 
aim  of  the  teacher  and  leader  of  men.  It  is  only  as 
property — material  having  of  whatsoever  kind — 
ministers  to  this  result  that  it  is  of  value.  Where  it 
hinders  this  result  its  influence  has  to  be  regarded  as 
mischievous. 

In  the  long  run  the  problems  of  wealth  and  hfe  will 
adjust  themselves,  and  we  are  beginning  to  see  how. 
The  clue  to  the  solution  will  be  in  accepting  life- 
development  as  always  the  highest  end.  The  soul 
must  first  of  all  be  free  in  order  that  it  may  grow.  The 
gold  tyranny  that  seeks  to  fetter  it  must  at  all  costs 
be  broken.  And  that  can  only  be  by  the  uprising  of 
men  whose  minds  are  not  to  be  bought ;  who  will 
speak  naught  but  the  truth,  though  they  starve  in 
the  process.  And  these  men  must  to-day  speak  the 
truth  about  wealth.  They  must  show  that  in  the 
method  of  its  procuring,  of  its  distribution,  and  of  its 
enjoyment,  no  law  shall  be  broken  that  concerns  the 
furtherance  of  Hfe.  To  this  end  the  wealth  must  be 
equitably  distributed.  The  beauty  it  creates,  the 
energies  it  sets  in  motion,  the  art,  the  literature,  the 
enjoyment  it  promotes,  must  be  held  as  not  the 
appanage  of  a  few,  but,  in  as  far  as  the  ultimate  con- 
ditions permit,  the  inheritance  of  all.  The  end  is  that 
not  a  cHque  or  a  caste,  but  man  himself  is  to  be  wealthy  ; 
a  being,  that  is,  dowered  with  all  the  capacity  of  being, 
doing  and  possessing  that  is  commensurate  with  the 
magnificent  place  assigned  to  him  in  the  scheme  of  the 
world. 

74 


The  Social  Conscience 


THE  TRUE  SOCIETY 

A  true  society  will  come,  not  from  sudden  political  or 
economical  readjustments,  but  from  a  heightening  of 
the    type    of    the    individual    man.     To    effect    that 
heightening  is  what  rehgion  is  here  for.     And  it  is  pre- 
cisely here,  in  rehgion  property  conceived,  that  we  get 
the  common  life  at  once  in  its  purest  and  its  pro- 
foundest  form.     Religion  really  rests  on  this,  the  recog- 
nition of  the  innermost  Highest  Being  in  each  soul  of 
us.     So  is  it  that  Christ  is  the  true  eternal  Prophet  of 
the  common  hfe.     He  appeals  to  the  universal  soul. 
True  Christianity  recognises  that  all  rehgions  are  the 
dialects  of  one  common  speech.     It  holds  its  place  as 
the  crown  and  summit  of  the  human  consciousness,  at 
the  top  of  all  the  faiths,  yet  vitally  and  originally 
related  to  all.     It  sees  its  own  beginnings  in  the  dim 
aspirations  of  far-off  times,  and  of  what  we  once  thought 
were  ahen  cults. 

It  was  eminently  natural  that  a  rehgion  which,  in  its 
pure  form,  proclaimed  as  its  vital  principle  the  essential 
unity  and  brotherhood  of  humanity  should,  from  the 
beginning,  have  striven  to  express  this  unity  in  a  con- 
crete way.  That  was  the  meaning  of  the  community 
of  goods  in  the  apostohc  age,  of  the  monastic  institu- 
tions, v/hose  ideal,  though  fallen  away  from  so  grievously 
in  later  days,  was  originally  so  noble. 

THE  CHURCH  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE. 

The  Church  is  a  social  power  or  nothing.  Its  theology, 
its  opinions,  have  been  a  mere  incident  as  compared 

75 


Selections  from  Brierley 

with  its  grasp  upon,  its  inspiration  of,  the  common  life. 
Its  whole  business  has  been  to  grip  and  combine  men  in 
the  pursuit  of  lofty  ideals,  to  help  them  govern  them- 
selves through  the  best  that  is  in  them.  The  primitive 
Church  was  founded  on  this  basis.  We  read  the  New 
Testament  for  its  directions  for  living.  The  Roman 
Government  persecuted  the  Church,  not  for  its  ideas, 
but  because  it  regarded  it  as  a  secret  society.  As  we 
study  the  after-histor}',  the  same  thing  everywhere 
meets  us.  Where  the  Church  helped  and  inspired,  it 
was  not  by  iis  statements  on  abstract  questions,  which 
varied  continually  from  age  to  age,  but  from  its  example 
of  Hfe.  What  made  Bernard  in  his  Clairvaux  wilder- 
ness, and  Francis,  the  "  Poverello,"  at  Assisi,  so  mighty 
for  good  in  mediaeval  Europe  was  not  their  opinions 
on  transubstantiation,  but  the  standard  of  living 
they  set  up.  And  later  the  EngHsh  Methodism 
gained  its  force,  not  from  Wesley's  views  on  the  quin- 
quarticular  controversy,  fiercely  as  it  raged,  but  from 
the  example  which  these  banded  societies  offered,  of 
a  people  ordering  their  conversation  and  their  whole 
career  on  the  basis  of  their  relation  to  God  and 
to  eternity. 

That  is  the  note  we  have  to  recover  for  England  and 
the  Enghsh-speaking  world.  We  cannot  afford  that 
our  Anglo-Saxondom  should  sink  out  of  view  of  its  sky. 
A  society  that  is  organised  on  a  basis  of  football  or 
Sunday  sing-songs  cannot  come  to  much.  Heroes  will 
not  be  born  to  it ;  it  will  do  no  great  things.  It  would 
produce  in  time  a  race  incapable  of  understanding  the 
history  of  the  past — that  history  so  full  of  sacrifice  and 
noble  deeds.  To  stop  this  rush  to  Gehenna  is  plainly 
the   Church's  present   business.     From  its  bosom,   if 

76 


The  Social  Conscience 

from  anywhere,  must  come  the  movement  to  rally  our 
disorganised  human  host,  and  set  it  again  on  the  upward 
track.  It  will  be  by  a  big  fight  over  the  whole  field  of 
operation,  but  chiefly  by  a  courageous  and  statesman- 
like handling  of  the  problems  of  childhood  and  youth, 
that  the  Church  will  again  take  its  true  place,  and 
society  throb  once  more  under  Divine  inspirations. 

THE  ENGLISH  SUNDAY 

The  winds  of  criticism  are  beating  upon  all  our 
institutions  to-day,  and  among  other  things  we  are 
asked  to  revalue  that  ancient  asset  the  Enghsh  Sunday. 
The  Church  by  various  signs  shows  it  is  not  entirely 
satisfied  with  it,  and  the  world  is  in  a  not  less  critical 
mood.  A  large  and,  as  it  seems,  increasing  section  of 
the  population  has  frankly  given  the  religious  tradition 
of  it  the  go  by. 

Few  questions  touch  weightier  issues,  or  come  closer 
home  to  us  all,  than  this  :  What  has  our  Sunday  to  say 
for  itself,  in  view  of  the  national  consciousness 
of  the  time  ?  Sunday  is  one  of  the  oldest  things 
that  man  brings  with  him.  We  do  not  know  how 
old  it  is.  It  goes  back  a  long  way.  More  than 
a  thousand  years  before  Abraham's  time  there  was  -/ 
Sabbatical  observance  in  the  Babylonian  plains,  and 
in  connection  with  religious  services  of  a  peculiarly 
elevated  character.  Humanity  has,  in  fact,  been 
brought  up  on  the  idea  of  devoting  a  day,  at  regular  and 
shortly-recurring  intervals,  for  the  cessation  of  labour, 
for  the  recovery  by  each  individual  of  his  personal 
freedom,  and  for  the  consideration  of  his  relation  with 
the  unseen,     Christianity,  on  its  appearance,  took  over 


Selections  from  Brierley 

this  great  religious  asset.  It  changed  the  date  of  Sun- 
day in  the  week,  and  gave  to  its  observances  a  flavour 
of  its  own.  It  is,  indeed,  precisely  in  connection  with 
these  observances  that  the  whole  modern  question  of 
Sunday  comes  up. 

The  spiritual  aspect  of  Sunday  is  a  treasure  which, 
equally  with  the  Puritan,  we  are  bound  to  safeguard. 
The  greatest  thing  in  humanity  to-day,  and  the  pledge 
of  the  greatest  things  to  come,  is  the  spiritual  conscious- 
ness which  the  Church  possesses,  and  which,  when  its 
worship  is  real,  comes  then  to  its  greatest  height. 
Evolution,  in  its  age-long  working,  has  produced 
nothing  else  comparable  to  this.  To  bring  men 
universally  into  the  possession  of  it  is  to  confer  the 
greatest  boon  that  life  offers. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  religious  teacher  and  worker 
to  master  the  conditions  of  the  time,  and  to  plan  his 
campaign  accordingly.  And  he  may  do  it  with  good 
heart.  For  when  all  is  said  and  done  in  other  depart- 
ments, there  is  nowhere  else  such  a  power  of  appeal 
and  fascination  as  the  Gospel  offers. 

Sunday  must,  first  of  all,  be  a  democratic  Sunda}^  a 
people's  day.  Its  institutions  and  services  must  be 
an  appeal  to  every  healthy  human  instinct.  It  should 
offer  art  and  music  for  eye  and  ear,  and  the  joys  of 
fellowship  for  the  social  nature ;  it  should  let  loose 
amongst  the  poor  and  disinherited  all  its  play  of 
kindness  and  brotherly  love.  It  has  to  popularise  the 
Christian  Sunday  by  flooding  it  with  sunshine.  May 
we  not,  bringing  fresh  aids  and  knowledge  to  the 
task,  seek  again  to  realise  the  ideal  of  holy  George 
Herbert,  and  make  Sunday  a  time  of  which  we 
can  say  : 

78 


The  Social  Conscience 

Thou  art  a  day  of  mirth  ! 

And  where  the  week-days  travel  on  ground, 
Thy  flight  is  higher  as  thy  birth  ! 

O  let  me  take  thee  at  the  bound  [ 
Leaping  with  thee  from  seven  to  seven. 

Till  that  we  both  (being  tossed  from  earth) 
Fly,  hand  in  hand,  to  heaven  !  " 


THE  SOCIAL  PRESSURE 

The  problem  of  the  social  pressure  is  a  tremendous 
one,  full  of  everj^  imaginable  complication,  yet  we 
are  beginning  to  see  our  way  in  it.  What  has  to  be 
done,  we  recognise,  is  to  untangle  the  several  threads 
of  it  and  follow  them  up.  Some  of  the  apparently 
most  hopeless  features  look  far  less  hopeless  to-day 
than  they  did  not  long  ago.  John  Stuart  Mill's 
pessimistic  conclusion,  for  instance,  that,  whatever 
our  methods  of  relief,  the  population  would  go  on 
increasing  always  to  starvation  point,  is  no  longer  held. 
There  are,  instead,  nations  already  crying  out  that 
their  population  is  decreasing. 

But  keeping  now  to  the  people  who  are  here,  what 
do  we  find  ?  At  our  bottom  stage  we  hav^e  three 
ragged  regiments — the  badly  employed,  the  un- 
employed, the  unemployable.  But  there  is  one 
classification  that  includes  them  all,  and  which  has  to 
be  remembered  in  any  scheme  of  reform.  These 
people  almost  without  exception  are  the  imskilled. 
The  honest  among  them  are  sweated  because  they 
know  no  craft  that  wall  bring  them  a  better  wage. 
The  State  must  interpose  itself  between  the  sweater 
and  his  victim,  as  it  interposed  itself  eighty  years  ago 
between  the  manufacturer  and  the  workhouse  boy  and 
girl  slaves  he  employed. 

79 


Selections  from  Brierley 

England  is,  it  is  evident,  awaking  to  the  facts  of 
the  present  position.  Its  conscience  is  stirred.  It 
is  aware  there  is  something  wrong.  But  it  is  not 
fully  awake.  It  is  not  so  aware  as  it  should  be  of 
its  immediate  responsibility.  Shall  we  palter  with 
our  miserable  conventions,  be  tied  for  ever  by  our 
feudal  traditions,  when,  if  we  will  only  put  forth  the 
strength  that  is  in  our  hand,  guided  by  the  knowledge 
that  is  in  our  brain,  we  can  straightway  drain  dry  the 
Serbonian  bog  in  which  our  poor  are  weltering,  and 
plant  them  out  on  wholesome  ground,  in  full  view  of 
the  sun  ? 

TRUE  SOCIAL  INTERCOURSE 

What  a  man  says  to  his  wife  or  his  child  at  the 
dinner-table  reveals  him  more  surely  than  his  finest 
eloquence  from  pulpit  or  rostrum.  It  reveals,  because 
it  shows  us  at  unawares  :  shows,  not  what  we  wish  to 
be,  not  what  we  want  the  world  to  think  of  us,  but 
what  at  the  moment  we  are.  Not  that  the  revelation 
will  necessarily  be  a  discreditable  one.  If  it  discloses 
sometimes  our  worst,  it  often  shows  our  best. 

It  was  the  fortune  of  the  writer  to  form  one  of  a 
quartette  who  spent  many  days  together  in  Norway. 
The  other  members  were  an  Anglican  canon,  a  Roman 
CathoUc  priest,  and  a  Unitarian  layman.  We  formed 
the  happiest  society,  in  which  we  discovered  to  our 
continual  wonderment  what  a  vast  area  of  common 
ground  our  souls  occupied.  "  If  we  go  on  hke  this," 
it  was  remarked,  "  what  is  to  become  of  all  our  political, 
our  theological,  and  our  ecclesiastical  animosities  ?  " 
What,  indeed  !     The  secret  of  the  coming  world  unity 

80 


The  Social  Conscience 

will  lie  in  getting  men  together  and  in  letting  them 
talk  at  large. 

Conversation,  in  our  day,  seems  to  have  ceased  to 
be  a  fine  art.  Perhaps  we  talk  less  because  we  do  more. 
Some  of  the  greatest  passages  in  history  were  talk, 
or  what  arose  out  of  it.  We  may  well  beheve  that 
some  of  the  Divinest  things  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  were 
spoken  over  the  supper-table  in  the  upper  chamber 
at  Jerusalem.  One  would  have  liked  to  hear  what 
Milton  said  to  Gahleo  when  he  visited  him  in  Italy. 
"  There  it  was  that  I  found  and  visited  Gahleo,  grown 
old,  a  prisoner  to  the  Inquisition  for  thinking  in 
astronomy  otherwise  than  the  Franciscan  and 
Dominican  licensers  thought." 

Religion,  which  begins  first  in  the  thought  and  feehng 
of  some  heaven-inspired  soul,  has  found  in  every  age 
its  most  effectual  form  of  propagation  in  free,  un- 
fettered talk.  Christianity  was  spread  in  this  way 
before  anything  was  written.  The  Puritans  were  not 
afraid  of  religious  conversation.  Calamy  said  of  Baxter 
that  "  he  talked  about  another  world  hke  one  that  had 
been  there,  and  was  come  as  a  sort  of  express  from 
thence  to  make  a  report  concerning  it."  We  remember 
that  a  similar  remark  is  made  by  Erasmus  concerning 
Sir  Thomas  More.  It  was  in  the  free  intercourse  of  the 
Common  Room  at  Lincoln  College  that  Methodism 
was  started.  And  later,  in  the  Oriel  Common  Room, 
Newman's  movement  began.  It  is  here,  in  this  frank 
encounter  of  man  with  man,  more  than  in  set  speech, 
that  your  spiritual  genius  shows  himself. 

We  do  not  get  much  of  that  type  of  conversation 
now.  It  is  as  if  the  things  discussed  no  longer  existed. 
And  yet  they  do  exist,  and  they  are  worth  talking 

8i  F 


Selections  from  Brierley 

about.  On  the  whole,  one  must  admit  that  while  the 
world  has  progressed  in  many  ways,  it  shows  little 
improvement  in  the  matter  of  social  intercourse.  In 
some  aspects  of  it  it  has  gone  backward. 

The  remedy  for  all  this  is  hardly  to  banish  ourselves 
from  societ}^ ;  is  it  not  rather  to  lay  in  some  stock 
of  principles  for  our  conduct  in  it  ?  And  one  of  these 
is  an  edict  of  banishment  against  scandal,  so  far  as  our 
personal  talk  is  concerned.  Scandal  is  simply  the  con- 
versational resource  of  empty  minds — and  the  remedy 
is  to  fill  our  mind  with  other  themes  and  interests. 

The  world's  true  social  intercourse  is  yet  to  seek.  It 
is  an  affair  of  so  many  more  things  than  speech.  To 
reach  it  we  shall  need  a  new  social  system  :  a  system  in 
which  every  man  will  realise  his  relation  to  his  fellow, 
and  find  his  joy  in  contributing  to  that  fellow's  welfare. 
Tliat  means  a  vast  breaking  down  of  barriers,  a  vast 
opening  up  of  new  sympathies.  Our  present  condition 
is  one  of  irrehgious  barbarism.  If  Christ  came  again 
among  us,  do  we  think  He  would  travel  in  a  first-class 
carriage,  or  in  the  saloon  of  the  Mauretania  ?  You 
would  find  Him  in  the  third-class,  and  in  the  steerage  of 
the  hner.  He  would  go  there  to  seek  the  true  human- 
ness  of  humanity.  If  He  came  to  London,  think  you  He 
would  be  satisfied  with  a  West-end  where  souls  are 
crushed  out  by  enormous  luxuries,  and  an  East-end 
where  in  numberless  homes  people  eat  and  drink,  sleep, 
get  ill  and  die  in  one  room  ?  While  these  things  exist, 
let  us  not  call  ourselves  Christian,  or  even  civilised. 
Plainly  we  are  only  at  the  beginning  of  our  task  as 
human  beings.  We  shall  never  be  right  with  God,  or 
with  His  universe,  till  we  have  set  about  in  earnest  to  be 
right  with  our  neighbour. 

82 


The  Social  Conscience 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  CITY 

The  city  is  at  once  the  glory  and  the  disgrace  of  our 
civihsation.  It  has  been  the  centre  and  home  of  intelli- 
gence, and  yet  it  has  grown  without  inteUigence,  It 
has  come  about  no  one  knows  or  cares  how.  Now  that 
we  are  beginning  to  ask  questions  about  it,  we  begin 
to  perceive  that  its  problem  is  too  big  for  us.  We 
have  allowed  a  monster  to  develop  which  threatens  to 
devour  us. 

Nothing  grows  in  a  city.  It  is  in  itself  an  attack 
upon  nature.  As  it  advances,  all  the  beautiful  things 
wither  and  die.  We  watch  the  process  in  a  suburb. 
The  clump  of  old  oaks  we  used  to  pass  in  our  mornmg 
walk  has  gone  ;  the  green  meadow  has  become  a  brick- 
yard ;  the  thrushes,  the  blackbirds  we  used  to  hear 
have  disappeared  ;  the  brook  is  covered  in  ;  the  greenery 
over  which  the  eye  ranged  is  replaced  by  lines  of  brick 
and  mortar.  There  is  a  different  taste  in  the  air.  The 
country  has  been  annexed  by  the  city,  and  has  died  in 
the  process.  The  city,  we  say,  is  the  place  where 
nothing  grows.  The  things  by  which  man  lives — his 
cattle,  his  corn,  his  wine,  his  oil — have  here  no  place  to 
produce  themselves.  The  really  strong  men  of  the  city 
are  the  well-to-do,  who  were  most  likely  born  in  the 
country,  who  have  their  homes  in  it,  to  which  they  rush 
when  work  is  over,  and  who  have  long  holidays  by 
mountain  and  by  sea.  The  dweller  who  cannot  secure 
these  escapes  dwindles,  as  do  his  children  after  him. 

These  are  physical  results.  Note  now  some  moral 
ones.  The  ruthlessness  of  the  city  is  perhaps  nowhere 
more  shown  than  in  the  shrinkage  it  produces  in  human 
values.     We  esteem  each  other  so  much  less  there  than 

83  F  2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

anywhere  else.  In  the  small  town,  in  the  village,  every 
individual  counts  for  something,  for  all  he  is  worth. 
You  greet  the  village  policeman,  the  roadside  worker, 
and  discover  how  interesting  they  are.  Who  thinks 
of  greeting  a  pohceman  or  his  fellow-passenger  in  Fleet 
Street  ?  You  meet  a  man  on  your  travels  in  Switzer- 
land or  in  Norway.  You  spend  three  weeks  in  his 
company  and  realise  how  many  ties  there  are  between 
you.  If  he  came  afterward  to  your  neighbourhood  in 
the  country  you  would  be  friends  for  hfe.  He  Hves  in 
London,  within  a  mile  of  you,  and  therefore  you  are  no 
more  to  each  other.  The  village  shoemaker  dies  and 
the  whole  community  is  moved.  Everybody  knew  him. 
A  thousand  shoemakers  may  drop  out  in  London,  and 
London  does  not  turn  a  hair. 

There  is  another  side  to  the  problem  of  the  city,  the 
most  difficult  of  all,  and  where  we  seem  farthest  from 
a  solution.  It  is  the  problem  of  poverty,  of  destitution. 
The  production  of  our  worst,  our  hopeless  classes,  our 
thieves,  prostitutes,  drunkards,  incapables,  is,  more 
than  anything  else,  the  result  of  our  aggregation  in 
huge  cities,  and  till  we  have  remedied  that  we  have 
remedied  nothing. 

But  how  to  remedy  things  ?  We  shall  not  remedy 
them  assuredly  till  the  common-sense,  and  still  more 
the  conscience,  of  the  community  has  been  awakened 
and  made  to  study  the  facts  as  they  are.  We  have  to 
unlearn  our  city  pride.  We  have  to  learn  instead  that 
the  city  is  a  monster  that  has  to  be  tamed  and  brought 
under.  We  have  to  learn  that  a  community,  to  be 
really  human,  must  be  kept  to  human  conditions  ;  and 
one  of  these  is  a  manageable  size. 

Meanwhile  the  city,  as  itis,  will  have  to  be  reorganised. 

84 


The  Social  Conscience 

We  look  for  a  social  machinery  in  it  so  efficient,  so  wide- 
spread, so  minutely  ramified,  as  shall  take  into  its  care 
every  member  of  the  vast  family  therein  gathered. 
May  we  not  entertain  here  a  new  conception  of  the 
Church  ?  Of  a  Church  which,  instead  of  occupying 
itself  with  theologic  squabbles,  with  the  routine  of 
sermon-making,  with  the  splitting  up  into  endless 
divisions,  should  resolve  itself  into  the  one  supreme 
agency  for  bringing  these  vast,  shepherdless  hordes  into 
a  true  mutual  relationship  ?  These  things  are  far 
from  us  as  yet.  But  they  are  the  questions  of  the  day, 
and  they  will  allow  us  no  peace  till  we  have  found  some 
means  of  getting  them  answered. 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  CRIMINAL 

Society  hitherto  has  been  busy  indicting  the  criminal. 
It  has  called  him  all  the  bad  names  of  its  vocabulary. 
It  has  caught  him,  judged  him,  prisoned  him  ;  and  our 
Chelsea  philosopher  winds  up  by  recommending  a 
wholesale  shooting  and  hanging  of  him.  We  are  now, 
however,  beginning  dimly  to  perceive  another  side  to 
all  this,  and  are  asking  uneasily  whether  Society,  of 
which  we  are  a  part,  is  not  on  the  whole  the  greater 
criminal ;  and  whether,  if  any  shooting  or  hanging  is  to 
be  done,  it  were  not  better  to  begin  nearer  home  ? 

Where  has  the  criminal  come  from  ?  How  did  he 
come  to  be  what  he  is  ?  What  of  the  system  which  has 
allowed  a  fellow  mortal  to  sink  to  this  depth  ?  But  we 
are  the  makers  and  supporters  of  the  system.  Do  not 
the  words  of  MaeterHnck  here  burn  the  skin  of  every 
one  of  us  ?  "  For  it  is  enough  that  we  should  feel  the 
cold  a  httle  less  than  the  labourer  who  passes  by,  that 

85 


Selections  from  Brierley 

we  should  be  better  fed  or  clad  than  he,  that  we  should 
buy  any  object  that  is  not  strictly  indispensable,  and 
we  have  unconsciously  returned,  through  a  thousand 
by-ways,  to  the  ruthless  act  of  primitive  man  despoiling 
his  weaker  brother."  Here  speaks  that  social  con- 
science outside  the  Church  which,  in  these  matters,  is 
nearer  the  Christianity  of  Christ  than  the  modern 
Church  itself.  The  earher  Church  was  bolder.  In 
teaching  that  the  goods  of  the  world  are  not  properly 
partitioned,  that  poverty  and  crime  are  an  indictment 
not  so  much  of  the  poor  and  the  criminal  as  of  the  rich, 
the  Socialist  of  to-day  is  only  saying  what  Chrysostom 
and  Basil  and  Jerome  and  Tertullian  said  ages  ago. 

Crime  is  a  disease,  and  one  that  is  everywhere  curable. 
The  existence  of  a  criminal  class  is  an  indictment,  not 
of  that  class  specially,  but  of  Society  at  large,  whose 
greed  and  neglect  have  produced  it.  Every  time  a  man 
enters  the  dock  Society  enters  with  him  as  particeps 
criminis.  And  the  only  way  of  curing  our  criminal  is 
not  by  the  infliction  of  pain,  but  by  Qn-ist's  way  of 
Divine  sympathy,  by  standing  in  with  him  as  a  brother, 
by  using  our  skill  to  fight  his  inner  ailment,  by  changing 
his  environment,  by  bringing  in  our  goodwill  to  assist 
his  diseased  will ;  in  a  word,  by  giving  his  better  self  a 
chance. 

UNWORLDLY  MEN 

Modern  society  in  all  departments  of  its  hfe  can 
only  be  saved  by  its  unworldly  men.  We  want 
pohticians  and  statesmen  of  this  breed.  Plato's 
cry  for  philosophers  as  State  rulers  meant  that  the 
only  men  for  such  posts  were  such  as  were  rooted 

86 


The  Social  Conscience 

in  the  Eternal.  Happily  there  were  and  are  such. 
Creighton's  remark  about  Hildebrand's  monk-popes, 
who  ruled  the  world  while  renouncing  it,  suggests  the 
high  road  here.  A  man  may  be  in  the  foremost  place 
and  keep  the  heart  of  a  child.  He  will  keep  it  by 
abiding  in  God,  ready  to  rule  or  to  serve,  to  be  at  top 
or  bottom  if  onty  it  be  His  will.  At  present  politics 
are  an  ugly  scramble,  and  Church  life  is  little  better. 
When  Lord  Grey  resigned  in  1834  he  told  Creevey  that 
he  had  300  apphcations  for  peerages  and  a  perfectly 
endless  number  for  baronetcies.  In  the  Church,  of 
all  denominations,  the  rush  for  front  places  is  just  as 
fierce  and  as  ruthless.  Men  will  talk  angelically  on  a 
pubHc  platform  about  humihty  and  self-renunciation, 
their  chief  thought  being  meanwhile  to  get  their  name 
advertised  and  their  address  published.  The  spiritual 
education,  both  of  the  world  and  of  the  Church,  is 
as  yet  clearly  only  at  its  beginning.  We  see  our 
nobler,  inner  world  but  dimly,  "  as  through  a  glass 
darkly."  We  need  all  of  us  to  get  our  vision  purged. 
The  reform  of  the  soul  is  a  more  urgent  need  than 
the  reform  of  Parliament.  When  we  are  at  last  fairly 
in  love  with  that  highest  world — the  world  opened  to 
us  in  the  New  Testament,  which  Jesus  Uved  in,  and 
where  all  the  noblest  aspirations  have  their  springs — 
we  shall  be  fit  for  whatever  post  or  work  is  assigned  us, 
and  carry  a  clean  soul  through  it  all. 


S? 


THOUGHTS   ON   LIFE 


THOUGHTS    ON    LIFE 

LIFE'S    APPEAL 

Life's  appeal,  as  it  comes  to  us  from  the  outside,  is 
a  plea  for  the  beautiful.  An  insistent  plea,  which  man 
will  be  compelled  to  answer  until  his  cities,  his  land- 
scapes, his  tools  and  implements,  the  whole  furniture 
and  surroundings  of  his  existence  come  under  its 
glorious  law.  But  that  is  only  a  beginning.  The 
voices  that  ring  in  his  soul  insist  on  another  beauty. 
Consider  here  the  soul's  quality.  There  is  no  revelation 
so  sure  as  that  in  the  qualities  of  things.  To  fire,  or 
water,  or  sunlight  you  may  give  any  name  you  please. 
No  name  or  lack  of  name  will  prevent  them  from 
working  out  into  the  world  all  that  is  hid  in  their 
nature.  And  as  with  fire  or  sunlight  so  with  the  soul. 
It  works  out  of  its  quahty,  out  of  that  mystery  of  its 
essence  which  is  irresistible  and  indestructible.  And 
its  quality,  ascertainable  whenever  it  shows  itself, 
is  to  aspire  and  to  work  ever  towards  the  perfect — 
the  perfect,  not  only  of  outward  form,  but  of 
that  inner  and  spiritual  beauty  which  we  call 
holiness. 

This  is  only  a  part  of  that  life-appeal  which  speaks 
in  the  modern  consciousness.  There  is  far  more,  but 
this  in  itself  surely  is  much.  It  is  a  revelation  as  rich 
as  it  is  authentic  and  authoritative.     It  is  a  revelation 

91 


Selections  from  Brierley 

without  books,  without  Church,  without  catechism 
or  tradition.  And  yet  its  mandate  is  as  clear  as 
though  it  pealed  from  Sinai,  or  wrote  itself  on  tables 
of  stone. 

And  the  burden  of  it  ?  Surely  it  is  to  be  of  good 
cheer  ;  to  enjoy  what  life  offers  ;  to  traverse  without 
faltering  its  road  of  experience  ;  to  take  its  illusions 
and  disappointments  as  openings  to  deeper  things  ; 
to  realise  ever  behind  it  that  Power  which  shares  in 
our  laughter  and  in  our  tears  ;  which  plays  with  us, 
but  will  not  let  us  stop  at  play  ;  which  will  have  us 
rest  at  nothing  short  of  the  higliest.  When  from 
this  study  of  hfe  we  open  the  New  Testament  we 
find  a  name  for  that  Power.  Life's  unvoiced  appeal 
and  this  message  from  GaHlee — the  message  which 
bids  us  trust  in  a  Father  whose  name  is  Love — seem 
marvellously  in  accord. 

LIFE'S  PRODUCTS 

Life  is  a  perpetual  weaving  of  all  sorts  of  raw 
material  into  all  kinds  of  manufactured  articles.  We 
must  always  correct  our  judgment  of  the  material 
by  a  study  of  the  product.  The  study  should  relieve 
us  from  a  host  of  superfluous  fears.  Why  trouble 
about  hardships,  about  difficulties,  about  renounce- 
ments, about  "  doing  without  "  for  ourselves  and  our 
children,  when  we  see  how  these  things  turn  out  ? 
They  are  the  very  stuff  that  a  healthy  human  nature 
is  calhng  for,  the  material  of  its  highest  quahty  of 
manufacture. 

Life's  products,  if  we  will  only  give  them  a  chance, 
are  so  wonderful.     We  receive  the  raw  material  at 

92 


Thoughts  on  Life 


the  beginning  of  the  process.  But  the  result  is  of  a 
fineness  often  beyond  our  tracing.  What  chemistry, 
what  analysis  can  fix  for  us  the  elements  of  a  truly 
spiritual  character  ?  What  is  the  machinery  that  has 
wrought  it  to  its  exquisite  beauty  ?  Has  this  finest 
of  all  results  been  consummated  only  to  disappear  ? 
Is  this  love,  this  faith,  this  glow  of  devotion  no  longer 
anything  ?  Who  that  beUeves  in  the  sanity  of  the 
universe  can  beheve  that  ? 

The  early  Fathers — you  find  it  in  Ignatius,  in 
Irenseus — taught  that  the  bread  of  the  Sacrament 
went  to  the  making  of  a  spiritual,  immortal  body. 
That  is  an  idea  too  coarsely  materiahstic  for  many  of 
us.  But  character,  the  extract  of  the  will's  noble 
striving  with  the  world,  the  subtle  essences  that  have 
flowed  out  of  loving  deeds,  out  of  soitows  bravely 
borne,  the  wisdom  born  of  experience,  the  vision  given 
to  faith — here  have  you  a  product,  an  entity  formed 
of  elements  which  the  body  did  not  generate, 
and  in  whose  fortune  it  does  not  share.  The  ulti- 
mate result  of  this  high  manufacture  is  too  fine 
for  mortal  perception.  It  passes  beyond  our  vision, 
to  take  its  place  and  service  in  those  higher  spheres 
to  which  it  is  akin,  and  where  it  will  find  itself 
at  home. 

LIFE  AS  AN  ACCUMULATOR 

Life  as  an  accumulator  works  in  mysterious,  baffling 
ways.  Often  it  will  store  up  for  long  antecedent 
periods  the  materials  that  are  finally  to  exhibit  them- 
selves on  the  great  scale  in  one  commanding  personaUty. 
It  took  generations  of  obscure  musicians  to  produce 

93 


Selections  from  Brierley 

finally  a  Bach,  a  Rossini,  a  Beethoven.  The  current 
runs  underground  for  far  distances  until  finally  its 
hidden  forces  burst  up  in  some  mighty  geyser-fountain, 
towering  heaven  high.  There  were  generations  of 
Wesleys,  all  full  of  character,  but  when  we  speak  of 
"  Wesley "  we  know  the  one  we  mean.  Patrick 
Bronte,  in  his  gloomy  moorland  parish,  cherished  a 
world  of  thought  and  passion  in  his  stern,  silent 
nature.  It  was  his  daughters  who  gave  it  vent  in 
"Jane  Eyre"  and  "  Wuthering  Heights."  Our 
separate  personahty  is,  indeed,  the  greatest  puzzle  in 
the  world.  We  can  never  apportion  its  boundaries  ; 
so  little  of  it  is  ours,  so  much  a  borrowing  from  the 
man  before  us. 

"  Young  children  gather  as  their  own 
The  harvest  that  the  dead  have  so\vn — 
The  dead,  forgotten  and  unknown." 

A  scientific  ordering  of  life  will  be  largely  a  science 
of  accumulations.  We  shall  settle  with  ourselves 
what  things  are  to  be  sought  and  retained,  and  what 
treated  as  negligible.  The  strange  thing  is  to  see  the 
eagerness  for  lumber.  Cicero  asks  if  anything  can  be 
more  absurd  than,  in  proportion  as  less  of  our  journey 
remains,  to  seek  a  greater  supply  .of  provisions.  And 
pagan  Porphyry,  a  far  better  Christian,  surely,  than 
many  in  the  Church,  gives  us  the  true  sense  of  the 
matter  in  that  letter  to  his  wife  where  he  bids  her  lay 
up  the  things  that  can  be  carried  into  the  world 
beyond,  instead  of  being  solicitous  about  what  will 
have  to  be  left  behind.  How  striking  is  the  Persian 
motto,  "  The  bricks  are  made  on  earth  with  which  to 
build  our  heavenly  palace  "  ;    and  that  saying  in  the 

94 


Thoughts  on  Life 


Laws  of  Manu,  "  For  after  death  neither  father,  nor 
mother,  nor  son,  nor  wife,  nor  relatives  are  his  com- 
panions :  his  virtue  alone  remains  with  him."  These 
souls  of  the  early  world,  seekers  after  God,  whose 
earnestness  shames  our  indifference,  knew  well  the 
lesson  of  our  theme.  They  saw  hfe  as  continuous, 
death  as  a  liberation,  and  the  realm  beyond  as  a  sphere 
where  the  spiritual  accumulations  of  the  present  would 
be  built  into  the  structure  of  eternity. 

LIFE  AS  A  MIXTURE 

The  whole  wisdom  of  hfe — a  wisdom  in  which  our 
age  has  yet  to  take  some  important  lessons — consists 
in  our  proper  apprehension  of  hfe  as  a  mixture  ;  a 
clear  perception  of  the  fact,  and  a  right  deahng  with 
it.  The  vast  experience  which  the  world  has  already 
had  should  have  taught  us  something  here  ;  and  yet, 
as  we  will  try  in  what  follows  to  show,  the  point  has 
too  often  been  missed.  In  pohtics,  in  rehgion,  in 
our  personal  attitude  to  life,  we  are  constant^  missing 
it.  And  what  is  the  point  ?  The  ages  have  shown 
us  nothing  if  not  this  :  that  in  the  mixture  the  good 
is  the  topmost,  the  victorious  element ;  that  the 
existing  evil  has  a  soul  of  good  in  it ;  that  our  wisdom 
is  in  beheving  in  the  good  and  working  for  it,  while 
keeping  the  eye  of  eternal  vigilance  on  that  other 
sinister  element  in  the  compound.  The  inevitable 
logic  of  facts  is  proving  to  us  that  the  human 
mixture  is,  on  the  whole,  good,  and,  by  the  inevi- 
table law  of  its  own  nature,  is  working  towards  a 
higher  good. 

In  the  sphere  of  religion,  also,  the  rule  obtains,  the 

95 


Selections  from  Brierley 

rule  of  things  mixed.  The  Christian  rehgion,  to  which 
we  here  confine  ourselves,  has  for  its  text-book  the 
Bible — the  book  on  which  we  have  been  brought  up  ; 
which  contains  the  highest  truth  and  the  highest  life 
we  know ;  which,  as  Seeley  says,  towers  over  the 
greatest  single  work  of  human  production  as  the  Peak 
of  Tenerif^e  towers  over  our  tallest  buildings.  But 
its  truth  and  hfe,  how  do  they  come  to  us  ?  In  such 
a  mixture  as  no  other  book  we  read  to-day  presents. 
In  it  eternal  truths  lie  so  often  wrapped  in  worn-out 
time-vestures.  We  have  no  business  to  offer  the 
book  to  the  non-Christian  peoples  as  anything  but 
what  we  ourselves  have  discovered  it  to  be — a  mixture. 
To  send  the  book  without  that  knowledge  of  it  would 
be  a  gross  fraud  and  a  grievous  wrong.  Are  we  to 
permit  these  peoples,  without  word  spoken  or  help 
given,  to  go  through  the  agonising  process  by  which 
our  own  standpoint  of  faith  has  been  reached  ?  Let 
us  go  on  giving  the  world  the  Bible — it  is  the  best 
gift  we  can  offer  it — but  give  it  under  no  false 
pretences.  "  Here,"  let  us  say  to  these  outside  races, 
"  is  a  God's  gift  to  you,  which  comes  as  every  other 
God-gift,  as  His  rain  and  sunshine.  His  crops  and 
seasons  come,  not  as  something  absolute  or  ideally 
perfect,  but  as  a  mixture  of  things  higher  and  lower, 
best  and  not  best,  but  a  mixture  where  the  best  is 
predominant,  so  predominant  that,  properly  used,  it 
will  lift  you  higher  than  ever  you  were  before." 

Our  personal  life  is  a  mixture.  No  philosophy  and 
no  theology  can  solve  the  problem  as  to  why  it  comes 
to  us  as  it  does.  But  we  can  live  here  by  a  faith 
which  is  founded  on  facts.  That  the  mixture  has  so 
much  good  in  it,  and  works  so  persistently  towards 

96 


Thoughts  on  Life 


a  good  that  is  beyond,  is  siiflficient  reason  for  us  to 
believe  that  the  ultimate  nature  of  things  is  neither 
adverse  nor  indifferent  towards  us.  The  defeats,  the 
failures,  the  pains,  the  sorrows,  are  life's  unknown 
quantity.  That  they  exist  side  by  side  with  so  much 
that  we  know  as  good  is  proof  enough,  in  courageous 
souls,  for  the  faith  that  these  also  are  part  of  a  scheme 
whose  final  issue  is  not  yet,  but  which  will  reveal  itself 
in  its  time  as  wholly  benevolent. 


THE  ART  OF  LETTING-GO 

The  process  of  letting-go  is  sometimes  a  hazardous 
one,  calling  for  all  the  nerve  and  judgment  there  may 
be  on  hand.  To  commit  oneself  to  a  glissade  in  the 
High  Alps  without  being  quite  sure  what  is  at  the 
farther  end,  or  to  drop  from  the  end  of  a  rope  slung  over 
a  vessel's  side  to  a  boat  riding  below  on  a  high-running 
sea,  with  the  consciousness  that  if  you  miss  the  elect 
moment  the  said  boat  will  be  yards  away,  and  you 
amongst  the  fishes,  are  experiences  in  this  line  which, 
when  gone  through  for  the  first  time,  leave  a  mark  in 
the  memory.  People  who  have  lived,  in  any  wide 
sense  of  the  word,  are  sure  sooner  or  later  to  come  upon 
dead  drops  of  faith  of  this  kind.  Moments  arrive  when 
we  have  to  leave  tlie  known  for  the  unknown,  to  com- 
mit ourselves  to  an  untried  principle,  to  make  our  fate 
depend  upon  the  action  of  a  law  which  we  have  hitherto 
taken  on  hearsay. 

Letting-go  is  a  business  both  of  the  exterior  and  the 
interior  of  hfe,  and  in  both  forms  an  essential  feature  of 
human  progress.     History  is  made  by  the  men  who 

97  G 


Selections  from   Brierley 

accomplish  it  successfully.  When  the  world  is  ready  for 
a  fresh  departure  its  struggling  consciousness  becomes 
incarnate  in  some  one  individual,  who  drops  away 
from  the  old  moorings,  canying  its  fortunes  in  his  hands. 
The  act,  whenever  and  on  whatever  scale  accomplished, 
offers  a  psychological  moment  which  one  would  like  to 
know  more  about.  It  is  a  pity  the  men  who  perform 
it  have  been,  many  of  them,  so  reticent. 

To  let-go  successfully  requires  some  conditions.  The 
time  must  be  ripe,  and  the  principle  to  which  we  com- 
mit ourselves  trustworthy.  In  the  region  of  social  and 
spiritual,  as  well  as  of  material  experiments,  the  way  is 
marked  by  lettings-go  which  were  catastrophes,  as  well 
as  by  those  which  were  successes. 

It  is  in  the  sphere  of  the  inner  and  spiritual  Hfe  that 

the  principle  of  letting-go  receives  some  of  its  most 

momentous  applications.     As  in  other  departments,  so 

here  we  find  the  human  story  one  first  of  crawling  on  all 

fours,  then  of  endeavours  after  the  upright  position, 

assisted   by   clutches   at  whatever   offers   itself   as   a 

support,  until  at  last  the  pupil  stands  and  walks  alone. 

In  no  other  direction,  however,  is  there  such  a  tendency 

to  reversion.     Christ  found  the  Jewish  nation  in  His 

day  still  going  on  crutches,  and  the  habit,  spite  of  His 

own  life  and  teaching,  in  the  religious  world  yet  remains 

the  fashion.     A  Paul  may,  with  his  doctrine  of  faith, 

knock  away  the  loved  implements  from  under  Galatian 

armpits,  but  as  soon  as  his  back  is  turned  the  old 

hobbling  recommences. 

To-day,  over  tliree-fourths  of  Christendom,  the 
religion  which  saves  is  held  to  consist  primarily  in  sub- 
mission to  Church  authority  and  the  acceptance  of  old- 
world    creeds.     The    crutch    ecclesiastical   is    still   de 

98 


Thoughts  on  Life 


rigiteur.  To  walk  without  it  is  considered  as  socially 
indecent.  The  nullius  addidus  jurare  in  verba  magistri 
habit  is  shocking  impertinence.  Spite,  however,  of 
clerical  reactions  and  all  other  appearances  to  the 
contrary,  men  will  in  the  end  get  to  their  feet  in  these 
matters,  and  the  crutch  be  finally  relegated  to  the 
museum  of  antiquities.  The  religion  which  consists 
simply  in  heart-whole  loyalty  to  truth  and  to  the 
highest  standard  of  living  is  already  in  sight.  The 
time  will  come  when  it  will  be  in  full  possession. 

THE  COMMONPLACE 

One  of  the  greatest  of  human  burdens  is  the  sense  of 
being  imprisoned  by  the  commonplace.  A  man  spends 
his  working  day  in  making  the  eighth  part  of  a  pin,  or 
in  totting  up  columns  of  figures,  or  in  selhng  calico. 
His  wife,  meanwliile,  is  occupied  with  an  incessant 
cooking,  cleaning  and  arranging,  which  has  all  to  be 
begun  over  again  to-morrow.  "  If  only  there  were  a 
respite,  and  a  chance  of  travel  and  change  !  "  They 
take  it  for  granted,  and  are  here  voicing  the  almost 
universal  feeling,  that  the  escape  from  commonplace  is 
simply  an  affair  of  change  of  circumstances. 

Yet  Nature  does  not  seem  to  have  organised  man's 
Hfe  here  with  a  view  to  its  being  a  purely  humdrum 
affair.  That  she  placed  him  in  such  an  astonisliing 
universe,  and  with  a  relation  to  it  so  marvellous,  is  in 
itself  the  answer  to  such  a  supposition.  The  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil  that  she  rubs  into  us  ;  our  encounters 
with  pain  and  trouble,  the  fact  that  we  can  never  get 
through  a  day  without  some  rebuff,  some  tangle  of 

99  G  2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

circumstance  ;  and,  most  striking  of  all,  that  in  full 
view  there  is  placed  before  every  mother's  son  of  us,  for 
wind  up  of  our  present  career,  the  tremendous  adven- 
ture of  death,  are  all  Nature's  stern  refusal  to  man  to 
permit  himself  to  be  trivial. 

Imprisoned  as  we  most  are  in  our  narrowing  labours 
and  positions,  we  may  yet  individually  escape  the 
commonplace.  There  is  but  one  way,  and  it  is  an  inward 
way.  The  only  change  as  to  our  circumstances  that  is 
really  effective  is  the  change  of  our  mental  and  moral 
attitude  towards  them.  Precisely  in  proportion  as  we 
become  in  ourselves  deeper,  purer,  more  refined,  more 
open-eyed,  does  our  environment  become  more  wonder- 
ful, more  wholly  removed  from  tedium  or  vulgarity. 
There  is  no  need  to  travel  a  thousand  miles  in  search  of 
the  subHme.  A  stairy  night  is  vastly  more  sublime 
than  Niagara.  The  moment  we  take  ourselves  in  hand 
and  reahse  that  the  whole  question  of  change,  whether 
it  be  of  scenery  or  circumstance,  is  from  beginning  to 
end  a  question  of  our  own  interior,  and  of  what  goes 
on  there,  our  deliverance  has  begun. 

Rehgion,in  the  sense  of  an  abiding  consciousness  of 
God,  is  the  supreme  deliverer  from  the  common-place. 
It  is,  as  Joubert  has  put  it,  "  the  poetry  of  the  heart  "  ; 
it  is  for  every  man  the  open  door  into  the  infinite. 
There  seems  a  corollary  to  this,  a  special  instruction  to 
the  religious  teacher  of  whatsoever  name.  What  his 
fellow  man  requires  of  him,  what,  indeed,  constitutes 
his  chief  raison  d'etre  in  the  world,  is  that  for  himself 
and  for  his  fellows  he  escape  the  commonplace.  And 
he  is  to  do  it,  not  so  much  by  genius  or  by  learning,  as 
by  enlargement  and  cleansing  of  his  interior  life,  by  the 
infiltration  into  it  of  the  hfe  of  God. 

100 


Thoughts  on  Life 

ADJUSTMENTS 

The  position  which  now  overshadows  all  others  for 
thoughtful  men  is  the  profound  change  which  is  working 
in  the  region  of  our  most  momentous  beliefs.  On  the 
question  of  man's  origin  and  destiny,  of  revelation, 
of  the  interpretation  of  the  Christian  facts,  we  are 
in  sight  of  nothing  less  than  a  revolution.  The  best 
minds  are  already  fully  occupied  with  the  movement ; 
and  what  fills  the  best  minds  is,  by  an  inevitable  law, 
certain  within  a  given  time  to  permeate  the  entire 
community.  The  beams  that  at  first  gild  the  topmost 
peaks  will,  later  on,  give  daylight  to  the  valleys. 
Cautious  and  timid  souls  are  aghast  at  the  signs. 
They  imagine  that  if  a  given  view  is  taken  from  them 
the  privation  will  work  death  to  the  soul.  It  is  con- 
soling here,  however,  to  note  Nature's  way  of  working 
in  these  matters,  to  note  what  actually  happens.         i 

The  process  man  is  now  going  through  is  no  new 
one.  All  through  the  ages  he  has  been  passing  from 
one  phase  of  belief  to  another.  And  always  when  he 
is  summoned  to  advance,  he  finds  the  way  prepared 
for  him.  Steps  have  been  cut  for  him  in  the  snow ; 
the  precipices  have  been  barricaded.  It  is  the  sub- 
conscious within  him,  rather  than  his  own  noisy 
argumentation,  that  has  prepared  his  solutions.  The 
great  controversies,  indeed,  seem  never  to  be  settled 
by  argument.  We  do  not  so  much  refute  error  as 
grow  out  of  it.  What  to  us  now  are  the  mediaeval 
theories  of  the  Atonement,  the  contests  of  NominaHsts 
and  Realists,  the  five  points  of  the  Calvinist-Arminian 
controversy  ?  These  battles  are  over  not  because  this 
or  that  side  was  declared  victor,  but  because  the  great 

lOI 


Selections  from  Brierley 

human  interests  have  shifted  their  ground.  Nature, 
in  conducting  her  child,  keeps  open  his  communications 
not  only  with  the  past,  but  also  with  the  future.  Man's 
present  views  are  provisions  on  the  way.  And  the 
supply  has  perpetually  to  be  renewed.  It  is  a  wilder- 
ness-manna which  v,i\\  not  keep  sweet  in  perpetuity. 

When  science  and  philosophy  have  said  their  last 
word,  the  mind's  final  adjustment  will  be  a  rehgious 
adjustment.     Here,   and   nowhere   else,   does   it   find 
refuge  against  the  infinite  mutations  of  time  and  the 
world.     It  is  an  open  secret  known  to  all  pure  souls. 
The  author  of  the  "  Imitation  "  has  put  it  for  us  with 
his  own  simple  beauty  :    "  When  a  man  cometh  to 
that  estate  that  he  seeketh  not  his  comfort  from  any 
creature,  then  first  doth  God  begin  to  be  altogether 
sweet    to    him.     Then    shall    he    be    contented    with 
whatever  doth  befall  him  in   this  world,   then  shall 
he  neither  rejoice  in  great  matters,  nor  be  sorrowful 
in  small,  but  entirely  and  confidently  he  committeth 
himself  to  God,  who  is  unto  him  all  in  all." 

ELECT  SPOTS 

When  a  spot  has  become  sacred  to  men  it  is  always 
in  the  first  place  because  a  great  spirit  has  dwelt  there. 
But  another  arresting  feature  is  the  way  in  wliich,  in 
the  making  of  a  "  holy  place,"  the  outside  matter, 
the  physical  surrounding,  has  acted  as  a  kind  of  reflex 
of  this  soul,  one  might  say  an  absorbent  of  it  ;  such 
that,  by  dwelling  in  the  place,  the  saint  or  hero  has 
saturated  it  with  his  personahty,  as  though  emanations 
from  his  central  self  had  poured  into  this  house  he 
dwelt  in,  into  these  fields  and  hills  his  eye  looked  upon. 

102 


Thoughts  on  Life 


It  is  this  speciality  of  the  rehgious  sense,  this  struggle 
which  it  wages  for  a  pure,  unadulterated  manifestation, 
that   has   given   rise    to    Puritanism,    to    those   bare 
simphcities  of  worship  so  offensive  to  art,  but  so  mighty 
for  life.     It  is  tlie  cry  for  immediacy  of  access  of  spirit 
to  spirit  which  would  have  no  distraction  of  the  out- 
ward in  its  high  intercourse.     Jacob's  rude  block  at 
Bethel  was  better  as  a  Divine  remembrancer  tlian  a 
garish  temple.     Here  is  why  simple  souls  have  found 
their  bare  meeting-house  more  sacred  than  cathedral 
altar.     They  know  it  as  the  place  where  the  heart  has 
reached  its  deepest  and  highest,  where  the  soul  has 
found  its   utmost  wealth   of  inner  experience.     The 
uncushioned  pew,  the  rude  bench,  have  been  to  them 
the  Damascus  road  where  the  vision  came,  their  Milan 
garden  where,  like  Augustine,  they  heard  the  inner 
voice  that  shaped  their  destiny.     By  the  Spirit's  thrill, 
most   august   of   consecrations,   the   lowly   place   has 
become  holy  ground. 

Every  thinking  man,  in  his  progress  through  life, 
has  his  elect  spots,  unnoted  of  others,  which  are 
shrines  to  him.  Poor  indeed  is  our  home  if  there  be 
not  some  quiet  chamber  in  it,  whose  windows  open 
toward  Jerusalem.  There  is  a  corner,  a  chair,  a 
bedside,  whence  the  soul  has  found  passage-way 
upward,  and  where  secret  strengths  have  flowed  in 
on  it,  as  from  uttermost  heights.  Often  these  places 
are  the  unlikeliest  of  all.  Prison  floors,  the  bottom- 
most abyss  of  outward  affliction,  are  by  the  soul's 
magic  turned  into  altars.  A  victim  of  the  earthquake 
at  Valparaiso  describes  how,  thrust  by  the  disaster 
with  his  family  from  a  comfortable  home  upon  the 
bare  hillside,  with  no  shelter  from  the  bitter  cold,  he 

103 


Selections  from  Brierley 

found,  in  the  four  nights  thus  spent,  a  sense  which  he 
would  never  after  forget  of  the  Divine  presence  and 
love.  To  sincere  hearts,  each  year  makes  the  world 
richer  in  these  sanctities.  One  becomes  almost 
superstitious  about  them.  There  is  a  certain  spot  in 
one  of  the  most  crowded  streets  of  London,  where  the 
present  writer  has,  in  passing,  had  time  after  time  such 
sudden  rush  of  happy  thought  as  to  make  him  wonder 
whether  hidden  behind  the  brickwork  there  be  not 
some  ministering  sprite,  some  mystic  fount  of 
inspiration. 

EVENTS  AS  TEACHERS 

It  is  a  great  step  in  the  interpretation  of  Hfe  when  we 
have  discovered  that  all  events  are  ultimately  spiritual. 
Their  outside  may  seem  at  the  furthest  remove  from  any 
such  character,  but  we  have  only  to  go  deep  enough  to 
find  that  this  is  the  simple  truth  about  them.  The  fall 
of  Jerusalem  was  to  Jeremiah  and  his  contemporaries 
just  a  bloody  and  horrible  catastrophe.  Within  it  was 
contained  the  movement  which  led  up  to  the  revelation 
of  God  as  henceforth  not  the  tribal  deity  of  Judah,  but 
the  one  God  and  Creator  of  all  nations  of  the  earth. 
The  spHt  in  the  Papacy,  which  gave  fourteenth  century 
Christendom  two  rival  and  mutually  anathematising 
Popes,  was,  to  innumerable  devout  Cathohcs,  only  a 
distressing  quarrel  and  a  grievous  religious  scandal. 
At  its  centre  the  spectacle  held  the  germ  of  that  appeal 
of  the  Christian  consciousness  from  fallible  and  rival 
ecclesiastics  to  Christ  Himself,  which  issued  in  the 
Reformation.  When  shall  we  ever  reach  the  central 
inwardness  of  the  event  we  call  the  Crucifixion  ?     In 

104 


Thoughts  on  Life 


itself,  on  the  outside,  it  was  a  sheer,  grim  fact,  a  hideous 
kiUing.  It  was  not  speech,  nor  music,  nor  poetry,  nor 
art,  nor  philosophy,  nor  saving  power.  It  was  the 
doing  to  death  of  a  victim  in  the  cruel  Roman  fashion. 
And  yet,  as  we  press  toward  the  inner  recesses  of  this 
fact,  how  much  do  we  meet  of  art  and  philosophy  and 
devotion  and  saving  power,  and  all  Divine  things  that 
have  already  come  out  of  it,  and  how  much  more, 
unreached  as  yet,  remains  behind  ? 

There  is  this  advantage  about  events  considered  as 
teachers,  that  they  are  so  entirely  honest  and  trust- 
worthy. Unhke  so  many  of  our  rehgious  instructors, 
they  carry  no  top  hamper  of  tradition,  and  they  never 
worry  us  with  preconceived  theories.  They  neither  He 
nor  flatter,  but  bring  us  a  lesson  crammed  with  reahty, 
and  bid  us  make  what  we  can  of  it. 

The  greatest  evidence,  perhaps,  of  the  grandeur  and 
infinite  reach  of  human  destinies  lies  in  this  conscious 
exposure  of  the  soul  to  the  momentous  events  that  await 
it.  And  especially  those  darker  events  which  cast  so 
chill  a  shadow  before  them.  It  may  be  that,  as  Livy 
says,  "  Segnius  homines  bona  quam  mala  seniinnt " 
(men  have  a  keener  sense  of  ill  than  of  good).  But  what 
they  feel  so  keenty  as  ill  bears  in  itself  a  message  that  it 
is  not  the  end.  That  deep  word  of  Mrs.  Browning, 
"  But  pain  is  not  the  fruit  of  pain,"  verifies  itself.  No, 
not  pain,  but  something  far  other  shall  be  the  fruit  of 
what  we  here  suffer.  Shall  we  not  say  indeed,  with  a 
German  writer,  "  Everything  inferior  is  a  higher  in  the 
making  ;  everything  hateful  a  coming  beautiful,  every- 
thing evil  a  coming  good  "  ?  An  inspired  apostle  has 
given  us  the  true  inwardness  of  events,  in  the  declara- 
tion that  the  present  pain  shall  be  swallowed  up  in  the 

105 


Selections  from  Brierley 

coming  glory,  and  that  no  one  of  all  the  conceivable 
happenings  in  heaven  or  on  earth  can  separate  the 
people  of  God  from  the  love  of  God. 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  PAST 

Tlie  present  is  master  of  the  past,  and  not  its  slave. 
The  prophetic  minds  have  ever  gone  on  this  assumption. 
It  was  the  attitude  of  Jesus.  He  was  crucified  for  being 
a  revolutionary,  for  beheving  that  there  was  a  greater 
inspiration  living  then  in  His  soul  than  was  to  be  found 
in  any  old-world  writings.  It  is  precisely  as  men  have 
followed  Him  here,  precisely  as  they  have  caught  the 
new  note  for  their  time,  and  fearlessly  uttered  it,  that 
they  have  become  of  use  to  their  generation. 

It  is  on  this  view  of  the  right  relations  of  past  and 
present  that  our  whole  religious  thought  in  the  future 
must  proceed.     When  Pascal  declared  that  the  human 
race  was,  in  its  totaUty,  as  an  individual,  ever  growing 
and  ever  learning,  he  uttered  a  truth  whose  imphcations 
went  further  probably  than  even  he  himself  perceived. 
For  it  proclaims  the  newest  mind  as  ever  the  oldest  and 
the  most  experienced  mind.     The  race  is  older  with 
each  generation,  and  knows  more.     And  its  new  know- 
ledge is  always  a  fresh  chapter  of  the  human  Scripture. 
When  men  generally  have  perceived  this  there  will  be 
surcease  for  ever  of  the  pitiful  spectacle  of  rehgious 
minds  tormenting  themselves  and  others  with  notions 
of  God,  man  and  the  future  derived  from  the  childhood 
of  the  world.     It  will  be  seen  that  we  are  on  an  ascend- 
ing scale  of  height  and  vision,  and  that  the  view  open 
to  us  is  more  trustworthy  than  that  of  men  for  their 
time  truly  inspired,  but  who  historically  and  evolu- 

io6 


Thoughts  on  Life 


tionarily  were  lower  down  on  the  road.  The  past  is 
ours  not  for  our  enslavement,  but  for  our  use,  for  our 
learning,  for  means  of  conquering  a  vaster  future.  No 
less  than  this  is  involved  in  our  behef  in  God  the  Living 
Spirit.  With  Vinet  we  hold  that  "  the  Reformation  is 
ever  permanent  in  the  Church  even  as  Christianity.  It 
is  Christianity  restoring  itself  by  its  own  inherent 
strength." 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOWLINESS 

In  the  exhibition  of  the  transcendent  wonders  of  the 
atom  which  is  our  latest  revelation,  we  have  a  new 
sanction  for  the  Gospel  virtue  of  lowhness  and  for  its 
grace  of  contentment.     The  investigation  which  has 
discovered  the  infinite  potencies  of  the  tiniest  visible 
speck  suggests  the  infinite  potencies  in  our  own  least 
and  lowest.     We  see  here  how  our  insignificancies,  our 
Umitations,  are,  not  less  than  their  opposites,  parts  of 
the  Divine  order.     The  infinite  is  not  only  in  the  heaven 
of  heavens  ;    it  is  also  in  yonder  molecule.     And  we 
shall  have  achieved  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  the  inner 
victories  when  it  has  become  to  us  an  article  of  faith,  a 
fact  of  hfe  to  be  embraced  and  held  fast  day  by  day, 
that  our  least  and  poorest,  the  side  where  we  do  not 
count,  the  failure,  the  weakness  that  keeps  us  back 
from  honour,  the  obstacle  that  mars  our  pleasure — that 
all  this,  not  less  than  our  shining  gift,  our  sense  of  power, 
has  in  it  and  behind  it  all  the  majesty  of  the  eternal 
purpose.     The  infinitely  great  hves  with  and  by  the 
infinitely    Httle.     Our   weakness,    not    less    than    our 
strength,  is  a  part  of  God.     It  is  a  side  of  His  purpose, 
an  aspect  of  His  life. 

107 


Selections  from  Brierley 

And  this  blessed  discovery  puts  us  in  love,  not  only 
with  a  part,  but  with  the  whole  of  our  life.  We  look 
beyond  the  sordid  surface  to  the  eternal  beauty  that 
gleams  through.  We  reaHse  that  existence  itself  is 
victory.  We  do  not  quarrel  with  its  knobs,  excres- 
cences, and  rough  surfaces.  We  know  that  weeds, 
so  called,  are  "  plants  whose  virtues  have  not  yet  been 
discovered."  The  doctrine  holds  of  the  inner  garden 
as  well  as  of  our  plot  outside.  We  examine  our  hmi- 
tations  with  a  new  hopefulness.  They  are  the  atomic 
side  of  us.  It  is,  we  perceive,  only  our  ignorance 
which  hides  from  us  their  mysterious,  beneficent 
working,  their  stupendous  Divine  relationships. 

The  man  who  has  mastered  the  philosophy  of  lowli- 
ness will  be  free  of  many  things.  He  will  not  be  dis- 
appointed at  his  limitations  or  his  weakness  ;  and  that 
not  because  he  is  in  love  with  limitations  or  little- 
ness, but  because  he  discerns  behind  all  this  an  infinite 
greatness  looming.  It  is  here  also  he  will  find  his 
strength  to  be  honest  and  fearless  as  a  truth-seeker  and 
a  truth-utterer.  Your  true  independents  are  the  men 
who  are  at  their  ease  in  lowhness.  One  of  the  greatest 
weaknesses  of  public  life  to-day,  in  pohtics  as  in  religion, 
is  the  slavery  of  men  to  outward  position  and  to 
popular  applause.  We  shall  not  get  a  revival  of 
moral  and  spiritual  force  till  leaders  and  public  teachers, 
renewing  themselves  at  the  sources  of  highest  Hfe, 
have  won  their  emancipation  from  the  false  high  in 
its  every  form,  and  speak  and  act  in  absolute  loyalty 
to  the  true  high,  though  it  be  linked  with  a  manger  or 
a  cross.  Here  find  we,  indeed,  our  emancipation  from 
all  that  is  called  evil.  When  we  have  reached  this 
deeper  view — have  realised  for  ourselves  that  what,  in 

io8 


Thoughts  on  Life 

its  inner  aspect,  is  a  limit,  opens  on  its  other  side  to 
infinite  freedom  ;  that  experiences  which,  in  our  pre- 
sent appeal  to  our  consciousness,  are  gloomy  and 
painful,  have  behind  them  immeasurable  other  aspects, 
vastest  transformations ;  that  death  itself  is  an 
appearance  with  a  quite  other  reahty  behind — the  day 
of  our  freedom  will  have  dawned.  We  shall  accept 
life  in  its  totahty  as  a  Divine  gift.  In  its  highest  and 
lowest  we  shall  alike  touch  God. 


REACHING  THE  GOAL 

There  are  disquieting  reports  concerning  the  young 
man  of  to-day.  It  is  rumoured  that  his  interests  are 
somewhat  astray.  The  post  at  present  assigned  to 
him  in  the  world's  work  is  a  post  vacant  of  his  mind  and 
heart.  To  do  not  his  best  but  his  least  in  it,  and  to 
get  away  from  it  at  the  earliest  possible  to  idle  and 
expensive  pleasures,  are  said  to  be  his  ruling  ideas. 
Or  the  work,  he  thinks,  is  not  good  enough  for  him, 
and  he  scamps  it  while  dreaming  of  the  loftier  objects 
of  his  ambition. 

The  man  with  stuff  in  him  does  not  argue  in  this  way. 
What  if  his  present  occupation  is  not  the  final  or 
highest  he  is  to  reach  !  That  will  not  prevent  him 
from  putting  his  back  into  this  which  is  before  him. 
Actually  where  we  are  is  the  battleground  where  we 
are  to  play  the  man.  To  be  there  and  all  there,  to 
put  our  utmost  soul  into  the  job  in  hand,  is  the  way  of 
success.  A  fig  for  the  student  who  has  perpetually 
to  be  chasing  his  thoughts  back  to  his  theme  !  You 
will  do  no  good  till  you  know  how  to  be  absorbed. 

109 


Selections  from  Brierley 

We  love  that  story  of  the  mathematician  who  began 
to  chalk  some  formulae  on  the  back  of  a  carriage  in 
the  street,  and  was  then  astonished  to  find  his  black- 
board moving  away  from  him  !  His  concentration 
was  here  undoubtedly  a  httle  overdone,  but  it  was  this 
that  had  made  him  a  mathematician.  Here  and  now  ! 
For  heaven's  sake  do  not  sacrifice  your  present  for 
any  possible  future.  Let  this  be  the  best  there  is 
for  you,  whatever  may  come  after.  "  Be  perfect  in 
regard  to  what  is  here  and  now."  Remember  always, 
as  Jean  Paul  has  it,  that  "  this  future  is  nothing  but  a 
coming  present,  and  the  present  which  thou  despisest 
was  once  a  future  which  thou  desiredst."  Is  yours  a 
rough  and  uncouth  present  ?  Yet  Confucius  could 
say  :  "  With  coarse  rice  to  eat,  with  water  to  drink, 
and  my  bended  arm  for  a  pillow,  I  still  have  joy  in 
the  midst  of  these  things." 

Most  people,  especially  the  young,  are  intent  on 
some  sort  of  "  getting  there."  On  every  hand  heights 
rise  above  us  kindling  desire  to  cHmb  them.  And 
the  ambition  is  no  bad  thing  in  its  way  ;  properly 
handed,  one  of  the  best  things.  It  is  one  of  our 
highest  titles  that  we  arc  climbers.  The  question  is 
as  to  the  kind  of  summits  we  are  after,  and  what  we 
expect  when  we  reach  them.  One  matter  to  be  settled 
with  ourselves  at  the  start  is  that  whatever  outside 
elevation  we  attain,  whatever  accumulations  we  make, 
will  have  no  effect  whatever  in  satisfying  us.  At  the 
topmost  peak  you  are  at  the  work  of  wishing  just  as 
much  as  when  you  were  at  the  bottom.  And  to  gain 
the  thing  wanted  is  often  enough  to  lose  it. 

Is  life,  then,  a  cheat  ?  Only  a  cynic  would  say  so. 
Its  business  is  to  train  us  to  the  right  direction  in  our 

no 


Thoughts  on  Life 


climbing,  to  show  us  the  proper  "  there  "  to  be  reached. 
And  here  comes  in  the  supreme  office  of  religion. 
It  reveals  to  us  a  spiritual  world  whose  "  here  "  and 
"  there  "  have  no  connection  with  space,  yet  are  the 
surest  and  most  abiding  of  realities.  The  progress 
towards  these  altitudes  is  not  measured  in  miles,  nor 
can  it  be  promoted  by  the  most  ingenious  of  mechanical 
engineering.  There  are  no  tickets  to  be  purchased  on 
this  line  ;  no  saloon  carriages  ;  it  is  all  plain  tramping. 
In  this  progress  the  milHonaire  is  no  better  off  than  the 
artisan.  He  is,  in  fact,  handicapped  by  the  weight 
he  carries.  The  travellers,  unlike  those  others,  have 
no  misgivings  as  to  the  kind  of  region  they  are  entering, 
or  as  to  the  satisfactions  it  offers.  As  the  steps  mount 
the  air  becomes  ever  purer,  the  view  more  majestic, 
the  sense  of  innermost  wellness  the  more  pronounced. 
Getting  there — to  this  "  there  " — is  plainly  worth 
the  trouble.  There  is  absolutely  no  doubt  as  to  the 
existence  of  the  region,  and  none  either  as  to  its  accessi- 
bility. You  may  deny  a  future  life,  or  an3'^thing  else 
you  choose.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  soul's  Promised 
Land,  high  up,  invisible,  you  may  spare  the  breath  of 
negation,  for  there  are  people  who  are  Hving  in  it. 
And  being  there  they  have  a  shrewd  suspicion,  born 
not  of  the  mind's  logic,  but  of  an  experience  so  much 
deeper,  that  this  region  is  an  eternal  one,  and  their 
relation  to  it  eternal. 


POSSESSING  OURSELVES 

Possessing    ourselves,    truly    conceived,    can    never 
be  a  narrowness,  a  selfish  isolation.     It  is  rooted  in 

III 


Selections  from  Brierley 

obedience,  in  loyalty  to  the  highest.  It  begins  not 
by  shutting  its  doors,  but  by  opening  them  to  a  uni- 
verse, to  a  hospitahty  which  claims  God  as  its  guest. 
And  this  receptiveness  will  be  no  mere  passivity. 
When  in  this  way  we  possess  ourselves,  we  shall  want 
to  make  the  property  worth  possessing.  We  inhabit 
this  interior,  and  our  first  business  is  to  furnish  it. 
Here  am  I,  established  on  this  bit  of  infinite  space, 
on  this  moment  out  of  eternity,  with  the  task  in  my 
hands — to  create  myself.  Here  to  me  is  offered  the 
mystery  of  the  power,  the  mystery  of  to-day,  to  do 
what  I  will  with  them.  There  are  a  hundred  ways  of 
frittering  them,  a  hundred  forms  of  meanness,  of  in- 
consequence, of  moral  ughness,  into  which  I  may  turn 
them.  Shall  I  be  content  with  these,  with  anything 
less  than  the  highest  possible  ? 

If  we  decide  for  that  highest,  it  will  put  us  at  issue 
on  a  good  many  points  with  the  world  as  it  is.  You 
want,  for  instance,  to  fill  your  mind  with  the  truth  of 
things.  That  will  put  you  at  issue  with  numbers  of 
people  who  instead  want  to  fill  you  with  themselves. 
You  will  have  to  wave  away  the  whole  race  of  mental 
despots,  who,  filled  with  the  lust  of  power,  are  nothing 
less  than  spiritual  beasts  of  prey.  They  urge  upon 
you  some  old-world  conception  of  God  and  man  which 
they  use  as  an  instrument  for  dominating  your  mind. 
The  priest  or  preacher,  of  whatever  name,  whose 
manifest  desire  is  to  help  and  inspire  you,  to  stimulate 
your  nobler  part,  is  to  be  welcomed  as  a  friend.  But 
beware  the  man  who  comes  to  you  with  threats  ; 
who  interposes  his  Churcli,  his  creed,  between  yourself 
and  that  ultimate  truth  which  is  your  heritage.  If 
he  is  to  do  all  your  seeing,  your  own  eye  will  shrivel 

112 


Thoughts  on  Life 


into  blindness.     His  threat  of  damnation  is  an  appeal 
to  your  courage. 

If  we  would  possess  ourselves,  we  need  beware  of  all 
sorts  of  invaders.  When  we  consider  what,  in  this 
brief  life  of  ours,  there  is  to  learn  and  do,  the  common 
waste  of  time  is  appalHng.  What  is  the  value  we 
are  putting  on  hfe  when  we  give  our  hours  and  days 
to  vapid  amusements,  to  frivolous  reading,  to  talk 
in  which  there  is  neither  sense  nor  soul,  to  melancholic 
musings  of  doubt  and  despair  ?  We  should  seek 
our  own  company  oftener  if  we  had  made  our  company 
a  little  more  valuable.  For  the  full  soul,  at  one  with 
the  universe,  finds  in  itself  the  best  society.  It  is 
never  less  alone  than  when  alone.  It  is  in  company 
with  the  eternal.  All  things  speak  to  it ;  a  tree,  a 
bird,  the  moving  cloud,  the  face  of  a  child,  kindle  it 
to  inner  raptures.  Its  solitude  is  a  communion,  a 
prayer,  a  hymn  of  thanksgiving. 

A  great,  an  infinitely  complex  operation  truly  is 
this  business  of  gaining,  of  possessing  ourselves.  It 
is  God's  work  and  our  own.  A  thousand  foes  menace 
the  possession  ;  we  guard  it  at  the  price  of  an  incessant 
vigilance.  And  for  what  end  do  we  strive  and  watch  ? 
Is  it  to  keep  this  treasure  as  a  miser  his  hoard  ?  Are 
we  preaching  here  a  colossal  egotism  ;  a  doctrine  of 
what  George  Ehot  calls  "  the  miserable  aims  that  end 
in  self  "  ?  It  is  the  opposite  of  that,  for  the  great 
possessing  is  always  for  the  greater  giving.  We  want 
to  make  ourselves  worthy  for  the  one  end  that  what 
we  offer  to  the  service  of  God  and  of  our  fellow  may  be 
an  offering  of  price. 

"  Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how  ; 
Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  Thine." 

113  H 


Selections  from   Brierley 

NEGATIVE    BLESSINGS 

It  is  astonishing  how  coolly  we  take  our  negative 
mercies.  If  we  had  a  week  of  blindness  we  should 
begin  to  understand  what  non-bhndness  means,  what 
it  is  to  wake  up  of  a  morning  with  unimpaired  eyesight. 
The  man  who  is  crippled  with  rheumatism  could  give 
lessons  on  the  privilege  of  being  able  to  swing  one's 
limbs  without  pain  or  ache.  It  would  be  a  wholesome 
experience  for  the  bored  dwellers  in  Park  Lane  to 
exchange  their  palaces  for  a  twelvemonth  with  the 
residents  in  Bethnal  Green. 

The  modern  Free  Churchman  who  so  eloquently 
proclaims  his  grievances  might,  for  a  mental  change, 
go  back  in  thought  for  a  few  centuries — to  the  time 
when  his  present  privileges  did  not  exist ;  when  his 
ancestors  had  their  religious  meetings  broken  up  by 
pistol  shots  ;  when  for  uttering  opinions  such  as  he 
now  fearlessly  maintains  he  would  have  been  prisoned 
and  racked.  How  easy  we  all  are  now  in  our  languid 
convictions  !  We  can  be  Arians  or  Socinians  or  even 
atheists  and  nobody  interferes.  We  should  have 
needed  more  courage  in  our  heresies  had  we  lived  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  when  an  English  Parliament 
made  the  above-named  opinions  punishable  with  death. 
Milton  in  that  age  declared  the  liberty  to  think  and  to 
speak  one's  thought  the  greatest  of  all  liberties.  We 
have  it,  and  we  forget  to  praise  God  for  it.  We 
should  understand  it  better  if  it  were  taken  from  us. 

We  shall  never  get  on  either  as  souls  or  as  citizens  by 
negatives  alone.  If  you  find  life  empty  it  is  because 
you  are  empty.  A  full  soul  finds  always  a  full  world. 
"  No,"  of  itself,  is  no  man's  food.     If  you  stay  in  it  you 

114 


Thoughts  on  Life 


will  be  starved.  Its  one  service  is  as  a  step  towards  a 
"  yes."  The  ennui,  the  misery  of  modern  society,  lies 
in  its  want  of  spiritual  conviction,  in  its  failure  to  grasp 
a  religious  reality.  And  nothing  that  rank,  or  fortune, 
or  circumstance  can  offer  will  find  that  void.  The  inner 
hunger  here  can  be  satisfied  from  only  one  source.  For 
man  is  made  for  God.  His  emptiness  in  himself  is  the 
negative  that  requires  this  Positive  to  make  him  a  man. 
That  vacant  spot  is  the  place  where  God  would  incar- 
nate Himself  in  us. 

"  Though  Christ  in  Joseph's  tovm 

A  thousand  times  were  bom, 
Till  He  is  bom  in  thee 

Thy  soul  is  still  foriom. 
The  Cross  on  Golgotha 

Can  never  save  thy  soul  ; 
The  Cross  in  thine  own  heart 

Alone  can  make  thee  whole." 

••NARROWNESS"  AND  •'BREADTH" 

An  urgent  need  of  the  hour  is  of  some  fresh  definitions 
which  shall  include  all  the  new  knowledge,  and  correctly 
relate  it  to  the  business  of  Uving.  And  in  no  direction 
is  such  a  reconstruction  needed  more  than  in  the  con- 
ceptions of  "  broad  "  and  "  narrow,"  in  rehgion  and 
life.  People  are  making  the  greatest  mistakes,  both 
about  breadth  and  narrowness.  They  praise  or  blame 
the  one  and  the  other  without  any  proper  reason.  It 
is  time  we  saw  the  real  significance  of  these  terms,  and 
the  part  they  fill  in  the  economy  of  Hfe. 

Let  us  be  sure  of  our  ground  when  we  condemn,  as 
we  are  apt  to  do,  the  "  narrowness  "  of  our  neighbour. 
We  talk  continually  of  "  narrow  "  views  in  religion  or 
in  conduct.     There  are  such,  undoubtedly,  of  which  we 

115  H  2 


Selections  from   Brierley 

may  speak  presently  ;  but  what  we  have  first  to  learn 
on  this  question  is  that  narrowness  is  not  in  itself 
necessarily  an  evil.  If  it  were,  be  sure  we  should  not 
find  it  so  continually  and  so  deeply  wrought  into  the 
innermost  processes  of  living.  Nature,  we  find,  is 
narrow  as  well  as  broad,  and  her  narrowness  is  as  needful 
as  her  breadth.  In  order  to  get  her  results  she  is 
perpetually  limiting  things,  shutting  them  behind  her 
barriers.  She  wraps  her  seed  up  close  till  its  time  comes 
to  unfold.  She  is  continually  purchasing  intensity  at 
the  cost  of  expansion.  Yet  Nature,  using  thus  her  tools 
of  narrowness,  works  incessantly  towards  breadth  as  a 
result.  Beginning  at  simple  combinations,  her  ten- 
dency is  always  to  a  greater  complexity. 

When   we  come  to   the  problems   of  morals   and 
rehgion  we  find  a  similarity  of  phenomena  which  shows 
us,  on  a  higher  plane,  the  working  of  the  self-same 
process,  under  the  self-same  guidance.     Rehgion,  to 
secure  its  results,  has  used,  and  effectively  used,  the 
narrowing  instincts,  and  has  therein  followed  strictly 
the  order  of  Nature.     Christianity,  for  instance,  would 
not,  humanly  speaking,  have  won  its  victories  and 
gained  its  position  in  the  world,  apart  from  the  employ- 
ment at  certain  periods,  of  Nature's  method  of  narrow- 
ness.    The  early  Christians  concentrated  on  one  side  of 
life.     They  lost  view  of  some  others,  but  what  they 
gained  thereby,  for  themselves  and  the  future,  was 
worth  the  sacrifice.     A  certain  insulation  was  required 
in  the  making  of  a  martyr.     And  the  faith  of  the  Church 
as  a  whole  was  for  a  long  while  of  too  naive  a  kind  to 
bear  sudden  expansions.     It  followed  a  true  instinct  in 
looking  askance  at  new  elements.     It  was  by  slow 
degrees,  amid  much  misgiving,  and  after  hard  fighting, 

ii6 


Thoughts  on  Life 


that  art  and  literature,  and  science  last  of  all,  found  a 
place  in  it. 

But  Nature,  so  slow,  so  careful,  so  conservative  in  her 
operations,  yet  never  stands  still.  The  May-time  comes, 
and  then  her  blooms,  hitherto  so  carefully  shut  up  from 
the  wintry  blast,  must  unclose  and  dare  the  open.  In 
humanity  as  a  whole,  and  in  the  development  of  the 
individual  mind  in  particular,  a  point  is  at  length 
reached  when  the  simpler  form  has  to  blend  with  the 
new  elements. 

It  is  when  we  have  reached  this  point  of  growth  that 
we  are  faced  with  a  question  which  may  be  said  to 
constitute  the  pecuhar  problem  of  our  day.  It  is  that 
of  combining  the  wider  interest  with  the  older  fervour. 
The  dilemma  is  a  serious  one  to  many  earnest  souls. 
But  if  we  have  correctly  stated  the  doctrine  of  this 
question  there  should  be  no  difficulty  about  its  solution. 
It  is  all  a  matter  of  the  stage  of  development.  If 
individuals  or  if  Churches  are  at  the  level  where  the  new 
complexity  is  proved  harmful,  they  are  better  without 
it,  and  are  right  in  rejecting  it.  The  flowers  must  not 
appear  in  March  that  are  meant  for  May.  Let  each 
man,  each  communit}^  judge  of  their  own  condition, 
of  what  is  safe  for  their  highest  interests,  and  act 
accordingly.  Till  a  thing  can  be  safely  done  it  were 
better  not  done.  Not  the  less  certain  is  it,  however, 
that  in  the  spiritual  development  of  humanity  the  point 
will  be  reached  when  these  diverse  elements  will  be 
included.  They  will  be  included  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  spiritual  man  because  they  are  included  in  the 
consciousness  of  God.  And  that  stage  has  already  been 
reached  by  many  souls.  They  have  learned  the 
spiritual  Hfe  as  at  once  an  unfathomed  depth,  and  as  an 

117 


Selections  from  Brierley 

illimitable   breadth.     They    pass    from    one   phase   to 

another  without  loss,  but  with  a  conscious  enrichment, 

and  the  point  they  have  attained  will  be  attained  in  the 

end  by  all.     To  the  common  humanity  will  come  at  last 

the  experience  and  the  conviction  which  Browning  has 

expressed  for  us  : 

"  You've  seen  the  world, 
The  beauty  and  the  wonder  and  the  power, 
The  shapes  of  things,  their  colours,  hghts  and  shades, 
Changes,  surprises — and  God  made  it  all  !  " 


THE  ART  OF  KEEPING  YOUNG 

Age  is  coming  to  be  regarded  by  the  moderns  as  the 
shadow  upon  hfe.  Men  exclaim  that  Nature  here  drives 
too  hard  a  bargain  with  them.  What  a  wail  is  that 
which  Beranger  raises  when  fifty  ! 

"  En  maux  cuisants  la  vieillesse  abonde  ; 
C'est  la  goutte  qui  nous  meurtrit, 
Le  c6cit6,  prison  profonde, 
La  surdity,  dont  chacun  rit." 

And  so  on  to  the  gloomy  end.  But  even  his  picture  is 
not  so  dismal  as  that  of  Amiel,  who,  at  forty-seven, 
finds  this  as  his  outlook  :  "  All  the  swarm  of  my  juvenile 
hopes  fled.  I  cannot  conceal  my  outlook  as  one  of 
increasing  isolation,  interior  mortification,  long  regrets, 
inconsolable  sadness,  lugubrious  old  age,  slow  agony, 
death  in  the  desert."  Yet  in  the  way,  at  least,  in 
which  Amiel  and  other  moderns  picture  the  business, 
there  is  absolutely  no  need  to  grow  old.  Life  may  be, 
and  was  meant  to  be,  an  immortal  youth. 

Of  course  there  is  here  a  qualification.  We  cannot 
put  back  the  clock,  and  no  philosophy  can  obhterate 
the  difference  between  seventy  and  twenty-one.     Of 

ii8 


Thoughts  on  Life 


each  one  of  us,  if  we  live  long  enough,  the  poet's  words 
will  be  true  :  "He  heard  the  voice  that  tells  men  they 
are  old."  The  march  of  the  physical  processes  is 
unceasing,  and  goes  on  without  our  consent  being 
asked.  But  while  the  inevitable  years  produce  their 
results,  the  inner  spiritual  conditions  are  at  every 
point  profoundly  modifying  them. 

In  the  process  of  getting  old  it  seems  often  as  though 
the  body  and  the  years  had  least  to  do  with  it.  There 
are  men  who  are  young  at  eighty,  and  others  who  are 
old  at  thirty.  To  keep  young  is  a  secret  of  the  soul. 
This  great  achievement — the  greatest  shall  we  say  that 
the  earthly  career  presents — demands  in  the  first  place 
some  renunciations.  We  have,  for  one  thing,  to  weed 
our  pleasure  garden  of  ignoble  satisfactions.  We  are 
to  be  resolutely  human  and  not  animal.  In  the  words 
of  Maeterhnck,  "sterile  pleasures  of  the  body  must  be 
sacrificed — all  that  is  not  in  absolute  harmony  with  a 
larger,  more  durable  energy  of  thought." 

The  one  and  only  prescription  for  perpetual  youtli 
is  the  life  of  faith.  Justification  by  faith  has  to  be 
restated  in  our  age,  and  it  is  time  it  were  done,  for 
society  is  going  to  pieces  for  want  of  it.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  who  was  a  youth  at  eighty,  puts 
the  matter  in  a  nutshell :  "  It  is  faith  in  something, 
an  enthusiasm  for  something,  that  makes  life  worth 
living."  The  faith  may  take  on  manifold  forms,  may 
attach  itself  to  various  creeds,  but  in  essence  it  is 
always  the  same — the  soul's  grasp  of  what  is  higher 
than  itself,  a  conviction  of  a  spiritual  order,  pure  and 
holy,  regnant  in  the  universe,  which  though  at  present 
invisible,  will  in  the  end  make  its  triumph  known. 
This  juvenescence  does  not  necessarily  carry  with 

119 


Selections  from  Brierley 

it  animal  health,  strength,  or  length  of  days.  But  it 
means  throughout  life  a  feeling  of  youth,  a  glorious 
exultancy,  a  growing  and  aspiring  soul.  This  is  the 
art  of  living  carried  to  its  highest  point.  By-and-by 
men  will  discover  that  the  only  wealth  is  hfe  ;  that 
the  only  way  to  make  the  best  of  this  world  is  to  make 
the  best  of  the  other.  For  the  two  are  one.  The 
highest  gleams  ever  through  this  lower.  The  pilgrim 
to  the  better  country  is  the  man  who,  living  or  dying, 
knows  the  bliss  of  a  perpetual  youth. 

AFTER  MIDDLE-AGE 

The  region  lying  westward  of  fifty  is  one  which  we 

shall  all  traverse  if  we  live  long  enough,  and  it  is  a 

doctrine  against  which  no  sceptic  voice  can  be  raised 

that  our  experiences  there  will  be  largely  a  reaping  of 

what,  in  the  earlier  period,  we  have  sown.     That  a 

successful  sowing  is  not  too  easy  is  evident  from  the 

failures  that  are  everywhere  apparent.     There  have 

been   philosophers   who   have   glorified   age   as   Ufe's 

happiest   time,   but   the  general  verdict   has  seemed 

otherwise.     The  early  world  as  a  whole  regarded  the 

post-youth    period    almost    with    a    shudder.     Even 

Wordsworth,  with  his  immense  spiritual  insight,  seems 

afraid  of  life's  second  half.     There  is  perhaps  nowhere 

in  hterature  a  more  vivid  picture  of  desolation  than 

that  of  his  "  Small  Celandine  "  as  an  image  of  hfe's 

helpless  last  stage,  with  these  mournful  hues  for  an 

ending  : 

"  O  man  !   that  from  thy  fair  and  shining  youth, 
Age  might  but  take  the  tilings  youth  needeth  not." 

And  there  is  undoubtedly  a  great  deal,  and  that  not 
merely  on  the  surface,  that  appears  to  back  up  this 

120 


Thoughts  on  Life 


indictment.  Age  is  in  a  sense  a  decline,  a  failure,  a 
disease,  which  no  medicine  can  cure.  On  one  great  side 
of  our  Hf  e,  whatever  our  earher  precautions  and  prepara- 
tions, we  are,  after  fifty,  certainly  on  the  down  grade. 

But  that  is  not  the  worst.  It  is  brought  as  one  of 
the  fatal  accusations  against  the  post-fifty  period  that 
it  lacks  interest.  A  man  has  by  that  time,  maybe, 
gained  a  fortune  to  discover  that  the  pleasures  he  hoped 
to  purchase  with  it  have  ceased  to  be  pleasures.  A 
deadly  monotony  has  set  in.  We  have  got  to  the 
bottom  of  things,  have  seen  the  whole  show  and  begin 
to  find  it  wearisome. 

We  come  back,  then,  to  the  view  of  life  as  a  probation, 
in  the  sense  that  the  after  part  reaps  what  the  earlier 
part  has  sown.  The  failure,  where  failure  there  is,  Hes 
not  in  the  game,  but  in  our  way  of  playing  it.  Properly 
understood  and  followed,  the  human  career,  if  we 
interpret  it  rightly,  should  to  its  very  end  be  full  of 
freshness  and  benediction.  The  whole  business  resolves 
itself  into  the  question  whether  life's  after  part  is  to  be 
considered  by  us  as  a  dechne  or  as  part  of  a  growth. 

It  is  well  to  persuade  ourselves,  and  the  sooner  in 
life  the  better,  that  there  is  no  possible  way  of  making 
our  "  after  middle  age  "  a  success  except  this  one  of 
accepting  ourselves  as  in  this  world  mainly  and 
ultimately  for  spiritual  growth.  It  is  this  only  which 
will  save  that  after  period  from  monotony.  We  do 
not  see  the  same  show  over  again.  As  our  inner  nature 
opens  our  world  becomes  ever  more  beautiful,  more 
mystically  inspired.  If  each  new  spring  does  not 
bring  us  a  deeper  message  it  is  because  we  have  been 
neglecting  our  inner  hfe.  To  the  growing  soul  the 
world    is    ever    miraculously    renewing    itself.     Our 

121 


Selections  from  Brierley 

fellow-men  grow  always  dearer  to  us,  always  more 
interesting.  And  how  much  more  interesting  does 
God  become  ! 


LOOKING  BACKWARD 

"  Forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind  and 
reaching  forth  to  those  things  which  are  before  "  has 
been  the  text  of  innumerable  sermons.  An  inspiring 
text  it  is,  the  clarion  note  of  progress.  A  much -needed 
note  in  our  own  day,  when  such  nuiltitudes  of  people, 
in  politics,  in  theology,  in  social  matters,  are  bent  on 
reversing  the  Apostohc  monition,  being  occupied  in 
forgetting  the  things  before  and  reaching  forth  to  those 
which  are  behind.  There  are  numbers  of  men — and 
very  noble  souls  among  them — who  are  by  tempera- 
ment and  mental  habit  invincible  conservatives.  The 
men  who  have  done  the  greatest  things  are  often  the 
worst  judges  of  them.  When  their  own  day  of  strength 
is  over  and  the}^  see  the  new  time  being  shaped  by  other 
hands  than  theirs,  they  think  the  world  has  sHpped  from 
their  grasp  to  be  on  the  down  grade.  They  are  under 
the  temptation  to  which  the  strongest  succumb,  to 
consider  their  own  work  to  be  God's  work,  while  their 
neighbour's  is  that  of  the  devil.  Against  all  this  the 
Apostle's  word  is  a  magnificent  vindication  of  the 
Divine  order,  and  a  call  to  us  to  believe  in  it.  What  is 
to  come  is,  despite  all  contrary  appearance,  a  furthering, 
and  not  a  reversal,  of  what  has  gone,  a  harvesting  of  all 
its  sowing,  a  developing  of  all  its  good. 

But  this  great  teaching  is  not  to  be  misunderstood  by 
us.  The  things  behind,  though  not  to  be  rested  in, 
have  yet  a  significance  which  is  worthy  of  all  our  study. 

122 


Thoughts  on  Life 


We  shall  never  do  much  in  the  future  if  we  neglect  the 
past.  It  is  our  past  that  has  made  us  what  we  are. 
When  a  man  of  repute  goes  down  in  some  moral 
catastrophe  the  downfall  seems  sudden  to  the  pubHc, 
but  it  is  not  sudden  to  the  fact.  Underneath  there  has 
been  going  on  a  long  process  of  sapping  and  mining, 
until  the  will  has  lost  all  power  of  resistance,  and  so 
against  the  new  temptation  has  no  defence  to  offer. 
To  give  way  to-day  is  to  leave  an  enemy  in  our  rear,  the 
worst  fault,  as  every  strategist  knows,  that  a  general 
can  commit. 

The  things  behind  us  are  for  the  sake  of  the  things  in 
front.  Do  we  not  see  something  prophetic  in  this 
infinity  of  preparation  ?  What  human  imagination 
would  have  dared  to  predict  that  out  of  the  original 
chaos  could  come  such  a  world  as  we  see  ;  that  the  first 
germ  of  animate  life  would  develop  into  the  intellect 
and  heart  inside  us  ?  And  if  all  that  is  behind,  what 
is  there  before  ?  Are  we  not  to  hope  something  out  of 
such  a  record  ?  To  the  Apostle  the  past,  with  all  its 
wonder,  was  as  nothing  to  the  future.  Let  us  share 
that  certitude.  It  is  well  founded.  "  Now  we  see 
through  a  glass  darkly,  but  then  face  to  face."  Now 
we  have  the  sense  and  feeling  of  God  deep  in  our  hearts. 
It  is  a  germ,  but  one,  be  sure,  that  will  have  full  fruition. 
All  science,  all  history,  all  rehgion  bid  us  stretch  on  to 
the  things  that  are  before. 

"  Grow  old  along  with  me. 
The  best  is  yet  to  be. 
The  last  of  life  for  which  the  first  was  made  ; 
Our  times  are  in  His  hand 
Who  saith,  A  whole  I  planned, 
Youth  knows  but  half  ;   trust  God  ;   see  all, 
Nor  be  afraid." 

123 


Selections  from   Brierley 

LIFE'S  RETROSPECT 

Life  is  to  be  judged,  not  from  its  emptiness,  but  from 
its  fulness.  Of  all  visible  things  on  this  planet,  we 
possess  it  in  its  highest  quality.  One  is  awestricken  in 
contemplating  the  immensity  of  the  inheritance  of 
which  we  are  put  in  possession.  That  we  can  think 
eternity  makes  us,  in  a  very  real  sense,  eternal. 
Immensity  and  eternity  meet  in  us,  for  we  are  the  living 
embodiments  of  their  idea.  Our  actual  existence  here 
is  a  mere  flash,  but  it  has  these  things  behind  it  and 
interpenetrating  it.  Deprive  man,  if  you  will,  of  his 
God,  of  his  religious  hopes,  you  can  never  deprive  him 
of  these  infinite  relations.  They  are  of  the  structure  of 
his  soul.  Wherever  that  came  from,  it  brought  these 
things  with  it,  and  in  it.  Man  stands  on  time,  but 
always  to  look  beyond  it. 

When  a  man  is  fifty  he  ought  to  know  himself  fairly 
well.  We  must  have  more  vitaHty  than  our  ancestors, 
for  so  many  of  them  write  of  themselves  as  practically 
done  with  by  that  time.  Montaigne  considered  himself 
old  at  fifty.  Erasmus  has  the  same  view.  He  says  : 
"  I  am  now  fifty,  a  term  of  hfe  which  many  do  not  reach, 
and  I  cannot  complain  that  I  have  not  Hved  long 
enough."  B(§ranger,  in  his  dismal  lines,  speaks  of 
what  awaits  him — gout,  blindness,  deafness,  imbecility 
— all  in  view  of  the  fact  that,  as  he  puts  is,  "  J'ai 
cinquante  ans." 

Some  of  us  have  gone  a  long  way  beyond  that,  and 
yet  feel  no  inclination  to  sing  dirges.  We  have  not 
much  future  before  us,  so  far  as  this  world  is  concerned. 
In  compensation  there  is  a  rich  past  behind  us,  of  which 
we  are  competent  to  form  some  judgments.     The  retro- 

124 


Thoughts  on  Life 


spect  has  some  delights  of  its  own.  Not  the  least  is  the 
consciousness  that  the  thing,  such  as  it  is,  has  been 
fairly  and  safely  got  through. 

One  of  the  chief  lessons  of  the  retrospect,  indeed,  is  to 
teach  us  not  to  be  afraid.  Think  of  all  the  fears  that  in 
succession  have  haunted  us  during  that  fifty  years,  if 
we  have  Hved  so  long  !  What  has  become  of  them  ? 
"  I  have  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in  my  hfe,"  said  a 
dying  man  to  his  children,  "  and  most  of  it  has  never 
happened."  People  torment  themselves  with  all 
manner  of  illusions.  Pessimists  take  it  as  a  certain 
proof  of  the  worthlessness  of  life  that  people  do  not 
want  to  Hve  their  Hves  over  again.  Many  do  not,  or 
say  they  do  not.  It  is  recorded  of  Dr.  Parker,  that 
preaching  on  his  seventy-first  birthday,  he  told  his  con- 
gregation that  he  had  been  asked  whether  he  would  like 
to  have  those  years  all  over  again,  to  which  he  had 
rephed,  "  Not  for  ten  milHon  worlds." 

The  backward  look  on  Hfe  gives  a  good  opportunity 
for  judging  of  what  Loisy  finely  calls  "  the  moral  worth 
of  the  universe."  If  anything,  in  such  a  review,  stands 
out  with  sunbright  clearness,  it  is  the  essentially 
spiritual  system  under  which  we  live.  We  have  in 
succession  all  sorts  of  pleasures  offered  us.  The  right 
moment  for  appraising  them  is  not  when  we  are  sipping 
the  foaming  draught.  It  is  the  moment  after,  or,  still 
better,  that  farther  moment  when  we  contemplate  them 
from  the  distance  of  years.  We  get  then  the  true 
flavour  of  actions.  It  is  the  aftertaste  that  counts. 
And  what  are  these  verdicts  ?  We  find  that  while  mere 
animal  gratification  leaves  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing, 
for  the  soul,  the  things  we  have  done  out  of  our  faith, 
our  love,  our  spirit  of  sacrifice,  create  in  us  an  after- 

125 


Selections  from  Brierley 

wards  of  purest  joy.  That,  we  find,  is  how  we  are  made. 
This  law,  of  the  after-results  of  things,  is  as  sure,  as 
inexorable  as  gravitation.  Its  operation  shows  us  the 
kind  of  universe  we  are  in.  If  things  are  like  that,  then 
the  Power  behind  them  is  hke  that. 

"  By  all  that  He  requires  of  me 
I  know  what  He  Himself  must  be." 

In  a  review  of  our  past  the  one  thing  that  gives  it 
coherence,  meaning,  purpose,  is  when  we  regard  it  as 
the  development  in  us  of  a  personahty,  the  growth 
of  a  soul.  One  pities  the  people  who  forget  this  :  one 
wonders  what  their  final  thoughts  will  be.  Whether 
we  be  men  or  women,  let  us  be  sure  of  this,  that  there 
is  nothing  else  worth  having  or  worth  developing. 
And  our  age,  with  all  its  defects  and  difficulties,  is,  if 
we  give  it  and  ourselves  a  chance,  a  splendid  one  for 
the  soul.  There  has  been  no  better  for  the  growth  of 
faith.  We  have  revolutionised  all  the  grounds  of 
faith,  upset  our  old  theologies,  turned  our  Bibles  inside 
out,  and  all  this  to  find  our  faith,  as  the  inspiration 
of  our  living,  more  deeply  rooted  than  ever  before. 
And  it  is  hfe  which  has  taught  us  this  ;  hfe,  whose 
vicissitudes  have  revealed  to  us  the  Divine  guidance  ; 
whose  experiences  have  shown  us  where  the  real 
values,  the  hidden  treasures,  he  ;  hfe,  whose  hard 
fight  has  thrown  us  back  upon  God  as  our  only  refuge 
and  strength  ;  Hfe,  whose  divine  character  and  glorious 
possibilities  have  been  revealed  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ, 
the  name  wliich  is  and  will  ever  remain,  humanity's 
dearest  possession,  the  soul  of  its  soul. 


126 


SOME   ETHICAL   CONSIDERATIONS 


SOME    ETHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

THE  ULTIMATE  STANDARD 

What  is  the  ultimate  standard  of  truth  and  conduct, 
and  what  is  the  relation  to  it  of  public  opinion  ?  The 
standard  is  an  Eternal  Truth  and  an  Eternal  Righteous- 
ness existent  and  inherent  in  the  universe,  towards 
which  the  evolution  of  the  human  mind  and  human 
character  is  a  constant  approximation.  In  other 
terms,  man  is  in  the  presence  of  a  slow  but  continuous 
process  of  unveiling  or  revelation  of  this  truth  and 
right.  That  he  has  continually  blundered  both  in  his 
mental  and  moral  appreciations  means  that  he  nearly 
always  begins  by  misconstruing  the  lesson  set  before 
him.  But  he  ends  by  mastering  it,  and  by  knowing 
he  has  done  so. 

The  current  opinion  of  an  age,  both  in  science,  ethics, 
and  reHgion,  represents,  then,  not  the  standard  itself, 
but  the  degree  to  which  the  ultimate  truth,  as  it  lies 
in  the  Divine  mind,  has  been  apprehended  and 
acquiesced  in  by  it.  And  here  lies  the  explanation  of 
the  anomaly  of  the  ranks  of  those  condemned  by 
existent  pubhc  opinion,  numbering  in  them  representa- 
tives at  once  of  the  worst  and  of  the  best  of  mankind. 
The  man  who  defies  pubhc  opinion  may  do  so  be- 
cause he  is  a  rogue  or  because  he  is  a  prophet.  The 
three  crosses  at  Jerusalem,  on  which  hung  two  thieves, 
and  in  their  midst  a  Christ,  is  of  this  antithesis  the 

129  I 


Selections  from   Brierley 

eternal  illustration.  The  malefactors  were  punished 
because  tliey  were  behind  the  ethical  level  of  the 
pubhc  consciousness,  the  Christ  because  He  was 
beyond  it. 

We  get  here  our  answer  to  the  question  as  to  the  true 
relation  of  the  individual  to  the  public  opinion  of  his 
day.  It  is  well  for  him  to  keep  up  with  it,  for  it  is, 
on  a  multitude  of  points,  the  product  of  successive 
revelations  of  unspeakable  value.  The  average  man 
•will  not  get  beyond  it — will,  in  fact,  need  its  esprit  de 
corps  to  maintain  himself  at  the  height  it  has  readied. 
But  the  deeper  spirits  whom  God  has  chosen  as  prophets 
and  leaders  must  ever  hold  themselves  open  to  the 
further  unfolding  of  His  unceasing  revelation,  and  in 
obedience  thereto  to  break  rank  and  move  on,  as  fore- 
runners of  the  new  and  higher  order. 

THE  MORALLY  UNDEFINED 

The  soul  of  man  to-day  finds  itself  embarrassed  by 
its  growth.  Its  height  enables  it  to  look  over  walls 
which  shut  in  the  prospect  for  our  fathers  ;  and  that 
prospect  for  the  present  is  somewhat  bewildering. 

The  modern  man — where  he  is  in  possession  of  his 
own  conscience — is  like  a  traveller  in  an  unexplored 
country.  He  has  to  find  his  way.  He  looks  up  from 
his  Bible,  his  books  of  religious  direction,  to  find 
himself  confronted  with  questions  about  which  they 
are  silent.  The  undefined  morahties  are  at  once  public 
and  private.  They  belong  to  our  action  as  fellow- 
citizens  in  the  commonwealth,  and  also  to  the  daily, 
intimate  habitudes  of  our  separate  Hfe.  It  is  actually 
only  within  our  own  lifetime  that  international  ethics 

130 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

have  come  up  as  a  matter  for  the  general  conscience. 
It  is  only  now  that  we  are  waking  up  to  the  singular 
conditions  that  prevail  there  ;  that  we  are  conscious 
of  the  extraordinary  anomaly  of  statesmen  following 
one  scale  of  morality  for  their  private  life  and  an 
entirely  different  one  for  the  conduct  of  "  foreign 
affairs."  It  is  only  now  that  men  begin  to  ask  why 
faith,  generosity,  and  the  Christian  law  of  loving- 
kindness  should  be  recognised  in  our  family  and  social 
deahngs,  while  mistrust,  cunning,  and  undisguised 
self-interest  should  be  the  recognised  motives  in  the 
intercom'se  of  States. 

When  we  come  to  hfe's  more  private  and  intimate 
side  we  discover  how  here  also  we  are  constantly 
moving  in  the  region  of  the  morally  undefined.  In 
the  most  important  concerns  we  have  no  published  code 
or  scale  of  values.  We  act  by  that  secret  instinct 
whose  working  reveals  the  height  and  complexion  of 
our  spirit.  And  here  what  curious  varieties  we  find  ! 
Where,  for  instance,  in  our  standard  ethics  have  we 
a  proper  appraisement  of  cheerfulness  ?  There  are 
multitudes  of  excellent  people,  with  consciences  that 
quiver  to  the  slightest  monitions  of  law  and  religion, 
but  who  lower  the  value  of  life  to  all  around  them  by 
their  incessant  gloom.  Ought  it  not  to  be  an  indictable 
offence  to  lower  the  common  joy  of  living  by  inflicting 
our  dismal  moods  upon  the  world  ?  Is  there,  indeed, 
a  more  frontal  virtue  than  this  of  good  cheer  ?  And 
yet  so  ethically  confused  are  we  that  tender  con- 
sciences by  the  score  around  us,  the  highest  product 
of  church  and  chapel,  are  not  aware  apparently  that 
it  is  a  virtue  ! 

May  we  share  in  Schiller's  aspiration  to  hve  "  in  the 

131  12 


Selections  from  Brierley 

full  enjoyment  of  my  spirit,"  or  forget  all  that  in 
soul-engrossing  activities  ?  Have  we  balanced  the 
claims  of  giving  vcrstts  saving,  of  generosity  versus 
prudence  ?  To  what  extent  shall  a  public  teacher  say 
out  what  he  thinks  and  knows  ?  What  economies 
of  utterance  shall  he  practise,  out  of  regard  for  weak 
brethren  and  wavering  faith  ?  Woman,  too ;  how 
shall  she  carry  herself  in  the  new  world  that  is  here  ? 
Shall  she  cultivate  tlie  modesties  and  repressions  of 
the  Victorian  ideal,  or  strike  in  with  the  assertiveness, 
independence,  and  free  expressions  of  this  later  time  ? 
The  problems  are  plainly  endless,  and  they  beset 
us  every  day.  And  the  higher  we  rise  the  more 
they  press.  The  old  text-books  no  longer  suffice. 
We  are  being  taken  out  of  them  to  something  higher 
and  surer,  to  that  constant  revelation  which  is  being 
communicated  to  earnest  and  receptive  souls.  The 
problems  are  an  education,  and  as  we  face  them  we 
are  conscious  of  a  Teacher.  God  has  not  finished  His 
Bible.  He  writes  its  new  chapters  daily  upon  our 
hearts.  With  "  Nil  sine  Deo  "  as  our  motto  we  move 
surelv  and  serenely  on  the  untrod  way.  Its  turns  are 
baffling  ;  the  cloud  is  often  on  the  landscape  ;  but  the 
road  leads  ever  upwards, 

CHARACTER    AND    REPUTATION 

In  modern  civilisation  we  have  the  curious 
spectacle  of  a  subsidiary  morality,  the  morality  not 
30  much  of  character  as  of  reputation.  It  is  practised 
by  people  who,  without  the  instinct  of  goodness,  have 
fully  developed  the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  They 
have  no  love  for  the  abyss  though  they  are  closely 

132 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

akin  to  the  unfortunates  who  have  got  there.  They 
claim  the  awards  of  respectabihty  wliile  secretly 
violating  its  laws.  They  live  the  "  double  Hfe."  A  large 
part  of  their  daily  business  is  the  business  of  conceal- 
ment, of  evasion.  Not  that  concealment  is,  in  itself, 
necessarily  discreditable.  Every  man  conceals  a  large 
part  of  his  life.  There  are  functions  of  it  which  are 
not  for  his  neighbour's  eye.  There  is  an  innocent 
dissimulation  also  which  we  borrow  from  mother  Nature 
— herself  the  most  arrant  of  dissimulators.  The  honest 
man's  face,  as  well  as  the  rascal's,  is  at  times  a  mask. 
He  needs  on  occasion  to  cover  up  his  soul,  and  is  glad 
of  the  screen  that  has  been  furnished  him.  But  the 
difference  between  him  and  this  other  is  that,  were  his 
veil  torn  aside,  the  result  would  be  at  worst  to  hurt 
his  feehngs,  while  in  the  other  the  result  is  ruin.  There 
are  more  people  in  this  latter  case  to-day  than  one 
likes  to  think  of.  Their  problem  is  not  how  to  avoid 
wrong,  but  how  to  avoid  being  found  out.  The  men 
who  are  "  doing  time  "  at  this  moment  at  Dartmoor 
or  Portland  have  outside  a  great  host  of  counterparts, 
who  are  at  large  simpl}^  because  they  have  been  luckier 
or  cleverer  in  their  concealments  than  their  brother 
criminals  under  lock  and  key. 

Can  we  create  character,  or  hold  it  in  any  way  under 
our  own  control  ?  It  is  the  m^aster  dilemma,  in  which 
life  and  logic  seem  eternally  at  war.  If  the  neces- 
sarians are  right  all  our  moral  vocabulary  is  a  delusion. 
Why  blame  a  man  for  what  he  cannot  help  ?  But 
the  vocabulary  is  there,  with  all  it  means.  And 
all  the  fatalist  theorisings  of  a  thousand  years  have 
not  shifted  it  by  a  hair's  breadth.  The  logic  of 
hfe    here    is,    in    fact,    deeper    than    our    own.     Its 

133 


Selections  from   Brierley 

freedom  and  its  necessity  work  at  a  depth  beyond 
our  ken.  Assuredly  the  best  freedom  we  know  is 
that  Divine  necessity  inherent  in  the  quaUty  of  a 
pure  soul  which  forbids  it  to  go  wrong.  The  work- 
ing of  that  inner  power  is  the  secret  of  religion.  The 
doctrine  of  it,  permanent  amid  all  outward  change, 
is  that  a  man  wins  his  light  by  linking  himself  to  a 
Something,  a  Someone  higher,  in  whom  his  being 
completes  itself.  As  Carljde  put  it  of  the  Puritans  : 
"  It  is  a  fruitful  kind  of  study,  that  of  men  who  do 
in  very  deed  understand  and  feel  at  all  moments  that 
they  are  in  contact  with  God,  that  the  right  and  wrong 
of  their  inner  life  has  extended  itself  into  Eternity  and 
Infinity.     It  is,  at  bottom,  my  religion  too." 

To  men  of  this  quality  the  relation  of  character 
to  reputation  becomes  quite  simple.  Tliey  think 
everything  of  the  first  and  next  to  notliing  of  the 
second.  Their  vision  of  reahty  is  so  clear  that  they 
have  little  enough  care  for  illusions.  Popularity, 
the  opinion  of  the  moment,  the  assent  of  the  current 
orthodoxy,  what  are  these  ?  To  get  one's  piece  of 
work  done  in  this  world,  to  find  the  truth  and  say  it, 
though  the  utterance  lead  to  Gethscmanc  and  the 
Cross — this  is  the  concern  of  the  world's  great  souls. 
And  when  they  have  passed,  and  men  catch  at  last 
the  actual  meaning  of  their  life,  they  bow  themselves 
over  the  print  of  what  tlicy  now  discern  to  be  Divine 
footsteps.  They  know  that  once  more  "  God  hath 
visited  His  people." 

A  NEW  DOCTRINE  OF  EQUALITY 

The  strange,  the  revolutionar}^  fact  of  our  time  is 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  actually,  here  and  there,  beginning 

134 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

to  be  taken  seriously.  Locked  up  for  long  in  the 
metaphysics  with  which  theology  had  swathed  Him, 
kept  in  the  skies  to  be  hymned  and  chanted  at,  He 
is  now  by  growing  multitudes  being  accepted  as  having 
something  really  to  say  about  the  social  order,  about 
the  true  way  of  living.  In  His  light  these  people  are 
coming  to  see  that  there  is  no  greatness  at  all  but  that 
of  the  soul ;  that,  as  Francis  in  the  thirteenth  century 
said,  "  A  man  is  as  great  as  he  is  in  the  sight  of  God 
and  no  otherwise."  They  see,  too,  that  the  business 
of  man  is  to  find  his  greatness,  not  in  ambition,  but  in 
service  ;  not  in  increasing  the  distance  between  himself 
and  his  humbler  brother,  but  in  lessening  it ;  not  in 
cHmbing  to  fashion's  gaudy  pinnacles,  but  in  reaching 
downwards  to  where  the  needy  are  and  helping  them 
along.  Upon  these  people  has  dawned  the  amazing 
fact — hid  for  centuries  in  a  theological  tenet,  but  now 
seen  as  incarnating  the  one  and  only  social  law — that 
humanity's  greatest  soul  humbled  Himself,  took 
dehberately  His  place  among  the  labourers,  accepting 
their  lot,  pouring  His  soul  into  theirs,  living  and  dying 
for  their  happiness.  That  truth  has  at  last  come,  and 
we  shall  never  again  let  it  go.  It  is  to  remake  the 
future,  and  the  process  is  beginning.  It  is  to  be  our 
politics,  our  social  code,  and  that  because  it  is  at  last  to 
be  our  religion. 

One  of  its  first  effects  will  be  in  a  new  doctrine 
of  equality.  That  doctrine  will  take  account  of  all 
the  natural  inequahties.  Society  will  still  have  its 
eminences.  Man  will  not  be  defrauded  of  his  upward 
look.  But  the  eminences  will  be  true  ones.  Intellect, 
gifts,  moral  worth,  achievement — all  will  get  their 
due.     There  will  be  room  for  them,  made  more  ample 

135 


Selections  from   Brierley 

by  the  carting  away  of  pasteboard  dignities.  But 
what,  in  this  arrangement,  will  be  the  equaUty  to  be 
sought  for  ?  It  will  be  the  equality  in  the  means  of 
happiness,  in  the  means  of  human  well-being.  For 
we  are  discovering  our  essential  kinship — discovering 
that  we  cannot  be  well,  be  happy,  unless  the  whole  of 
us  is  happy  and  well.  This  does  not  mean,  let  us  once 
more  repeat,  that  everybody  is  to  be  as  everybody  else. 
Well-being  does  not  demand  that ;  it  demands  the 
contrary.  What  it  does  mean  is  such  an  arrangement 
of  conditions,  such  a  management  of  the  national 
resources  as  shall  secure  to  every  man,  woman  and  child 
of  the  community  a  full,  a  wholesome  and  a  joyous 
life.  That  is  within  the  reach  of  this  nation  ;  and  the 
only  pohtics  worth  following  are  the  politics  that  work 
towards  it. 


MONEY  AND  RELIGION 

There  is  a  book  waiting  to  be  written  by  somebody 
on  Money  and  Rehgion.  They  have  had  a  curious 
history  ;  one  of  the  strangest  relations  ;  of  alliances 
and  antagonisms,  of  attractions  and  repulsions.  Money 
never  did,  and  nexev  could,  create  religion.  Your 
capitahst  may  endow  rehgious  institutions.  To  see  the 
way  he  is  run  after  by  religious  societies,  to  observe  the 
part  which  finance  plays  in  the  Church  organisations, 
one  might  easily  imagine  that  here  the  gold  bag  is 
omnipotent.  But  come  to  realities  and  we  find  where 
we  are.  You  cannot,  by  an}'  alchemy,  extract  prayer 
from  a  dollar  bill  or  a  banknote.  All  the  gold  in  the 
world  could  never  produce  a  genuine  religious 
aspiration.     The  noblest  emotions  were  never  born  in 

136 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

that  atmosphere,  and  where  it  prevails  they  do  not 
thrive.  It  was  not  money  that  started  Christianity, 
or  gave  us  the  New  Testament.  They  are  not  Stock 
Exchange  values. 

It  is  only  when  the  great  ecstasies  are  over,  when  the 
lofty  ideals  have  ceased  their  heavenward  flight,  that 
money  has  come  in  as  a  determining  factor  in  the 
Church's  Hfe.  The  betrayal  of  Jesus  for  thirty  pieces 
of  silver  was  more  than  an  isolated  event.  It  stands 
as  a  symbol  of  the  part  money  has  played  in  rehgion's 
story  ;  a  symbol,  mark  you,  not  simply  of  rehgion's 
weakness,  but  of  its  enduring  strength.  The  man  fell, 
but  the  Christ  triumphed  : 

"  Still,  as  of  old, 

Man  by  himself  is  priced. 
For  tliirty  pieces  Judas  sold 
Himself,  not  Christ." 

Where  money  is  master,  rehgion  is  always  at  its 
lowest  ebb.  When  the  Church  could  say  "  Silver  and 
gold  have  I  none,"  it  made  men  stand  up  and  walk. 
Later,  its  treasury  overflowed,  but  it  had  lost  its  power 
of  heahng. 

The  great  religious  founders  Iiave  always  kept  money 
in  its  place.  St.  Bernard  ruled  the  mind  of  Europe 
from  his  hut  at  Clairvaux  ;  Luther  and  Calvin,  Wichf 
and  Knox,  were  unknown  to  high  finance.  John 
Wesley  left  nothing  but  his  books  and  some  silver 
spoons.  These  men  conformed  to  that  saying  of 
Gratry  :  "  Take  poverty  for  your  weapon.  There  is 
nothing  to  be  done  with  men  who  have  not  conquered 
gold  and  silver."  The  same  is  true  of  all  the  men  who 
have  done  the  high  tilings.  Whoever  thinks  of  Galileo 
or  Copernicus  or  Newton  from  the  money  standpoint  ? 

137 


Selections  from  Brierley 

We  never  inquire  about  their  pounds  and  shillings. 
Yet  they  were  worth  something  to  the  world  !  Words- 
worth on  his  hills,  Burns  at  his  plough,  showered  gifts 
on  their  fellows,  but  they  were  not  in  specie  nor 
reahsable  that  way.  Milton  wrote  "  Paradise  Lost  " 
and  received  live  pounds  for  the  manuscript.  You 
can  see  to-day  the  httle  cottage  at  Chalfont  St.  Giles 
which  he  found  good  enough  for  him.  He  whose 
thought  ranged  through  infinity  and  eternity  had  not 
room  in  his  mind  for  the  material  on  which  Wall-street 
fattens.  These  voices  from  the  past  are  almost  lost 
in  the  roar  of  our  present-day  money-making.  But 
they  will  survive  and  be  heard  when  our  money-makers, 
so  big  in  their  own  estimation,  have  gone  silent  and 
forgotten. 

Wealth  can  get  to  the  outskirts  of  hfe  ;  it  can  never 
reach  its  centres.  It  can  feed  the  lower  nature  and 
the  middle  nature,  but  never  the  highest.  The 
startling  denunciation  of  riches  which  we  find  in  the 
Fathers,  in  Basil,  in  Jerome,  in  Chrysostom,  proceeded 
from  the  sense,  not  only  of  the  injustice  which  so  often 
accompanied  their  acquirement  and  use,  but  of  the 
obstacle  their  pursuit  offered  to  the  highest  bliss  of  the 
soul.  Laurence  OUphant  declares  tliat  "  moral  truth 
cannot  be  discovered  by  a  bad  man."  We  may  add, 
"  Nor  can  it  be  discovered  by  the  mere  wealth-hunter." 
That  road  misses  all  the  finest  prospects.  The  soul 
must  be  on  another  track  to  catch  siglit  of  these. 
Manunon  can  feed  only  a  bit  of  a  man  ;  can  play  upon 
but  one  string  of  his  vast  instrument,  a  string  which 
soon  wears  out  and  loses  tone. 

There  are  men  who  think  they  can  buy  heaven  with 
theii  money,  and  so  they  endow  churches  and  make 

138 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

huge  testamentary  donations  to  missions  !  It  is  our 
queer  modern  way.  It  will  be  almost  worth  dying  to 
see  the  kind  of  inheritance  these  capitalists  have  by 
such  means  secured  for  themselves  in  the  next  world. 
There  are  certain  currencies — such  as  Turkish  paper 
mone}' — which  shrink  a  good  deal  in  the  process  of 
exchange.  But  this  shrinkage  will  be  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  the  drop  in  value  which  awaits  some  pro- 
perties at  the  exchange  bureau  of  death.  Some  of  us, 
for  our  discipline  and  eternal  good,  will  discover 
then  how  woefully  we  have  misunderstood  the  celes- 
tial currency.  We  shall  have  to  begin  all  over 
again. 

At  present  there  is  no  proper  ethic  of  money  ;    but 
there  is  one  coming.     The  new  ethic  will  accept  wealth 
at  its  true  value,  neither  more  nor  less.     It  will  give 
man  leave  to  develop  to  their  utmost  all  the  treasures 
that  this  world   holds.     That   plainly   is   part   of   his 
inheritance.     But  it  will  have  new  principles  of  acquire- 
ment and  distribution.     It  mil  use  the  treasure  not  in 
the  interests  of  badness  but  of  goodness  ;   not  for  the 
growing  of  selfishness,  of  pride,  of  debasing  pleasures, 
of  caste  distinctions,  but  for  the  heightening  of  human 
Hfe.     It  will  direct  its  flow  to  the  relief  of  those  who 
starve  for  the  want  of  what  it  can  procure  ;    to  the 
feeding  of  ill-nourished  bodies  ;    to  securing  leisure  to 
the  over-worked  ;    to  the  winning  for  every  child  of 
Adam  the  means  of  a  full  and  joyous  life.     And  it  will 
teach,  with  an  authority  born  of  age-long  experience, 
and  which  none  will  gainsay,  that  man's  true  kingdom 
is  one  not  of  possession,  but  of  being  ;  not  of  meat 
and   drink,   but    of    God's    righteousness   and    peace 
and  joy. 

139 


Selections  from  Brierley 

CONSCIENCE 

What  is  conscience  ?  Have  we  misnamed  it  when  we 
call  it  a  Divine  inward  monitor  and  judge  ?  Is  there 
then,  after  all,  no  infallible  guide  for  our  life  ?  The 
modern  answer  on  these  points  represents  a  broader 
outlook  than  the  older  one  ;  yet,  properly  considered, 
it  is  not  one  whit  less  spiritual  or  rehgious.  Conscience 
in  this  view  is  the  correspondence  of  our  individual 
feehng  with  a  common  outside  standard.  But  this 
standard  is  continually  rising  and  its  upward  progress 
is  nothing  less  than  the  growing  revelation  of  God  in 
and  to  our  race.  71ie  Divine  inspiration  was  assuredly 
in  the  patriarchs,  though  their  manner  of  life  if  prac- 
tised here  would  have  consigned  them  to  a  gaol  within 
a  week.  The  explanation  is  that  while  the  force  work- 
ing in  them  was  from  above,  its  uplift  could,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  carry  them  only  as  far  as  it  was  in 
their  generation  to  go.  There  is  an  immutable  standard 
of  right  and  wrong,  but  it  was  not  plumped  into  the 
world  all  at  once.  It  is  dawning  upon  us  bit  by  bit  in 
the  ceaseless  development  of  the  human  spirit.  Con- 
science is  the  Divine  in  us,  but  like  another  incarnation, 
it  was  born  a  babe  and  comes  to  itself  by  degrees, 
"  increasing  in  wisdom  and  stature." 

The  by-play  of  conscience,  its  non-moral  activity,  is 
shown  in  our  state  ol  mind  towards  people  we  have 
wronged.  If  the  inner  tumult  occasioned  by  the  act 
does  not  issue  in  a  determination  to  repair  the  evil,  it 
produces  the  curious  opposite  result  of  a  settled  dishke 
of  our  victim.  He  has  somehow  put  us  in  the  wrong, 
and  we  bear  a  grudge  against  him  for  it.  Conscience 
requires  not  only  to  be  listened  to,  but  to  be  trained. 

140 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

It  needs  a  teacher  and  an  ally.  We  are  here  only  on 
safe  ground  when  we  realise,  as  Quaker  Barclay  puts  it 
in  his  Apology,  "  that  Christians  are  to  be  led  inwardly 
and  immediately  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  even  in  the  same 
manner,  though  it  befall  not  many  to  be  led  in  the  same 
measure,  as  the  saints  were  of  old." 


DOCTRINE  VERSUS  LIFE 

Between  doctrine  and  Hfe  there  will  be  ever  that  sort 
of  antagonism  which  subsists  between  greater  and  less. 
It  is  like  the  battle  of  sea  and  shore.  We  fence  in  our 
plot  of  the  idea  ;  we  wall  it  off  from  the  outside  savage 
and  untamed  material  universe,  as  men  build  embank- 
ments against  the  Atlantic.  Again  and  again  man  has 
awaked  to  find  this  outer  ocean,  mute,  vast  and  terrible, 
invading  his  defences  and  sweeping  away  his  structures 
of  granite.  For  a  moment  he  despairs  ;  the  world  is 
too  great,  too  subtle,  too  savage  as  it  seems  for  his  soul. 
But  the  miracle  here  is  that  the  Power  which  deals  thus 
with  him  will  not  permit  his  despair.  It  tells  him  that 
land  and  sea  together  are  his.  Let  him  build  on  the  one 
and  embark  on  the  other.  Each  has  its  treasure  for 
him  ;   each  .shall  help  him  to  his  final  kingdom. 

The  body  of  rehgion  may  change  and  decay,  but  its 
soul  ever  lives,  and  immortally  renews  itself.  Men 
formulate  their  theory  of  Calvary,  of  Atonement ;  they 
form  and  re-form  it.  Meanwhile,  amid  all  the  varying 
presentments  of  it,  the  Cross  draws  men  ;  until  at  last 
it  is  dawning  upon  us  that  it  is  not  the  theories  at  all 
that  have  been  the  attraction,  but  the  treasure  that  is 
hid  deep  in  the  wood  of  Calvary's  tree,  even  the  love  of 
God  which  passeth  knowledge. 

141 


Selections  from   Brierley 

The  soul  has  been  in  every  age  the  organ  of  Divine 
revelation,  and  it  is  still  performing  its  function.  The 
spiritual  universe  enlarges  continually  to  our  eye  with 
the  growth  of  our  power  of  vision.  And  as  in  the 
physical  cosmos,  so  in  the  spiritual,  the  change  of  view 
produced  by  our  wider  knowledge  is  a  change  not  from 
greater  to  less,  but  ever  from  more  to  more. 


A  NEW  WARFARE 

The  next  stage  in  the  human  evolution,  it  may  be 
predicted,  will  be  the  search  for,  and  the  finding  of, 
efficient  substitutes  lor  all  that  mihtarism  has  accom- 
plished in  the  training  of  man.  The  advocates  of 
conscription  point  out  what  it  does  for  a  nation's 
youth.  It  has  its  eye  on  every  citizen,  and  allows 
no  hfe  to  go  to  waste  unnoted.  It  tells  every  man 
he  is  somebody,  who  must  do  his  best  for  the  State. 
It  teaches  him  to  stand,  to  march,  to  handle  arms, 
to  obey  orders,  to  endure  fatigue,  to  act  in  unison 
with  others  ;  in  short,  it  procures  for  the  State  a 
trained  and  disciplined  people.  And  there  is  some- 
thing in  that — a  great  deal,  in  fact. 

We  want  a  trained  and  disciplined  people ;  a 
muscular,  full-blooded  and  courageous  people ;  a 
people  that  can  use  its  weapons  and  aim  straiglit. 
But — and  here  the  whole  question  comes — are  the 
only  weapons  guns  and  bayonets  ?  When  we  are 
taught  to  aim  straight,  shall  the  only  target  be  the 
bodies  of  our  fellow-men  !  Are  not  the  mattock 
and  plough  as  good  for  human  handling  as  sword 
and  gun  ?     Aim  skilfully  with  them  at  Mother  Earth, 

142 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

and  the  results,  in  turning  wildernesses  into  fruitful 
fields,  are  surely  as  good  as  the  maiming  of  limbs 
and  the  beating  out  of  brains  !  Does  not  Nature  offer 
us  a  field  for  all  our  courage  and  all  our  skill  ?  To 
tunnel  her  mountains,  drain  her  swamps,  combat  her 
diseases,  explore  her  unknown  territories  ;  to  become 
masters  of  her  sea  and  land,  of  her  heights  above  and 
depths  beneath  ;  to  wring  from  her  those  jealously 
guarded  secrets  which,  once  disclosed,  will  make 
man  into  superman — is  there  not  enough  in  this  war- 
fare to  call  out  all  of  strength  and  daring  there  is 
in  us  ? 

Instead  of  the  conscripts  of  slaughter  we  are  to  have 
the  conscripts  of  industry,  the  conscripts  of  human 
development.  The  militarists  are  right  in  demanding 
national  organisation,  a  training  system  which  lets  no 
individual  escape.  But  let  us  have  the  right  training 
and  for  the  right  objects.  In  previous  ages  man  has 
been  marvellously  industrious  and  marvellously  brave 
in  the  business  of  making  his  brother  man  miserable. 
We  want  now  all  that  industry  and  all  that  courage 
in  making  him  happy.  After  his  ages  of  madness 
let  him  begin  his  period  of  sanity.  After  placing  his 
valour,  his  civiHsation,  his  rehgion  so  long  at  the 
devil's  service,  let  him,  for  a  change,  place  them  at 
his  own  service.  For  countless  centuries,  having  so 
badly  missed  his  way,  he  has  wandered  in  the  wilderness. 
But  now  Canaan  is  in  full  view. 

THE  ETHIC  OF  THE  INTELLECT 

Human  morahty  is  a  plant  of  strangely  irregular 
growth.     Man    has    morahsed    himself    in    patches. 

143 


Selections  from  Brierley 

Nothing  is  more  curious  than  to  observe  the  dihgence 
with  which  one  part  of  us  has  been  ethicaUy  tended  as 
compared  with  the  neglect  visible  in  other  directions. 
Society  has  great  institutions  for  keeping  us  straight, 
but  their  jurisdiction  is  a  limited  one.  The  law  courts, 
for  instance,  deal  with  ethics  of  the  will  and  of  action. 
The  Church  so  far  has  had  to  do  mainly  witli  ethics  of 
act  and  feeling.  It  probes  deeper  than  the  law  court, 
judging  not  only  men's  evil  acts,  but  the  envy,  lust, 
avarice,  wrath,  hatred,  out  of  which  the  acts  have  come. 
But  there  remains  another  region  of  human  Hfe  for 
the  regulation  of  which  no  institution  at  present 
exists,  and  the  laws  of  which  are  still  very  much  to 
seek.     It  is  the  region  of  the  pure  intellect. 

Throughout  long  past  ages,  and  with  multitudes 
of  earnest  people  in  our  time,  there  has  been  no  such 
thing  as  an  ethic  of  the  intellect  at  all.  When  that 
ethic  does  arrive,  when  everybody  realises  that  mental 
morahty  is  essential  to  every  other  morality,  we  shall 
get  some  very  different  thinking,  leading  to  some  very 
different  acting  in  our  world,  and  not  least  amongst 
those  who  are  counted  specially  rehgious.  Rehgious 
men  still  proclaim  their  passionate  devotion  to  "  the 
truth,"  "  the  precious  truths,"  "  the  great  fundamental 
truths,"  without  daring  to  inquire  whether  what  they 
proclaim  is  true  at  all.  Religion  will  never  set  itself 
right  with  the  present  age,  and  still  less  with  the  time 
that  is  coming,  until  it  has  purged  itself  of,  and  done 
penance  for,  this  age-long  and  deadly  infraction  of 
the  ethic  of  the  intellect. 

The  ethic  of  the  intellect  needs  to  be  cultivated 
above  all  things  at  the  domestic  hearth.  Nowhere  so 
much  as  here  should  the  mind's  action  be  so  carefully 

144 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

watched.  Nowhere  so  much  as  here  do  we  need  the 
right  atmosphere  of  feehng  in  which  the  intellect  may 
do  its  work  of  thinking.  For  the  people  around  us 
will  be  to  us  precisely  according  to  that  atmosphere 
and  that  thought.  They  will  vary  as  these  vary.  A 
French  writer  says  we  are  never  just  except  to  those 
we  love.  He  is  right.  There  is  no  justice  outside 
of  love.  A  wife,  a  husband,  a  brother,  depend  for  their 
justice,  for  their  happiness,  on  the  way  we  set  our 
minds  towards  them.  They  cry  to  us  to  look  for  the 
good  in  them  ;  most  of  all  for  that  hidden  good, 
which  awaits  our  loving  culture  to  nurse  it  into  life. 
In  sum,  the  ethic  of  the  intellect  unites  in  the 
demand  for  truth,  for  Hfe,  for  love.  But  the  greatest 
of  these  is  love. 

PROGRESS  BY  SELF-REPRESSION 

All  progress  of  every  kind  has  come  by  self-repression. 
A  sure  instinct  tells  us  what  within  us  is  lower  and  what 
higher  ;  the  one  to  be  held  back  that  the  other  may  be 
furthered.  Whether  it  be  a  branch  of  learning  or 
a  physical  ex:cellence  that  we  are  striving  for,  we  put 
for  the  time  being  nine-tenths  of  us  under  hatches  to 
let  this  one  thing  get  its  chance.  And  in  the  sphere  of 
morals,  let  the  sensuous  philosophy  rave  as  it  may, 
the  common-sense  of  mankind  recognises  instinctively 
that  the  winning  of  all  that  makes  life  dignified  and 
beautiful,  the  prizes  of  love,  reverence,  faith,  of  inner 
harmony  and  loftiest  self-reaHsation,  are  by  repressi3n 
of  what  is  felt  to  be  lower  and  the  assertion  and  free 
play  of  the  higher. 

Caring    ever    less    about   himself,    the    true    leader 

145  K 


Selections  from   Brierley 

becomes  absorbed  more  and  more  in  the  cause  he  holds 
sacred.  He  can  take  with  a  laughing  humour  the  acci- 
dents that  happen  to  his  personality.  But  in  defence 
of  his  principle  he  is  the  most  assertive  of  men.  One 
of  the  most  noteworthy  features  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  than 
whom  in  his  private  capacity  was  none  more  courteous, 
was  the  almost  Titanic  wrath  that  flamed  in  him  when 
attack  was  made  on  the  rights  of  which  he  conceived 
himself  the  guardian.  To  be  yoked  to  great  principles 
keeps  one  eternally  young.  The  egotist  ages  quickly. 
When  Napoleon  was  twenty-nine  he  declared  "  Glory 
itself  is  insipid.  I  have  exhausted  everything."  It 
was  the  Nemesis  of  self.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  bliss 
of  being  enhsted  in  the  service  of  the  Highest,  that  at  the 
end  of  life  we  have  exhausted  nothing.  We  feel  we  are 
just  beginning.  Having  linked  our  fortunes  with  the 
best  and  made  it  a  part  of  ourselves,  our  self-assertion 
is  simply  the  expression  of  a  Divine  in  us  that  can 
never  perish. 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  PERSONALITY 

Greater  than  all  his  past  work,  as  it  stands  there  in 
sciences,  theologies,  churches,  is  the  worker  himself. 
You  talk  of  revelation  !  Here,  man,  did  you  but  know 
it,  in  your  own  h\nng  soul,  is  the  very  tissue  of  revela- 
tion, the  treasure-house  out  of  which  it  all  has  come  ! 
And  yet  it  is  not  you,  but  the  Something  within  and 
behind,  that  is  greatest  of  all.  For  you  are  ever  the 
eternal  coming  into  time,  and  by  your  growing  spirit 
making  Himself  visible  and  giving  Himself  speech. 
This  is  above  all  things  the  lesson  of  Christianity.     It 

146 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

is,  throughout,  the  story  of  victorious  personality. 
Jesus  conquered  the  world,  not  so  much  by  what  He 
said,  Divine  as  that  is,  but  by  what  He  was.  The 
Greek  and  Eastern  philosophers  had  uttered  beforehand 
almost  all  His  teachings,  but  He  exhibited  to  men  a 
soul  greater  than  all  teachings,  a  soul  whose  Divine 
sweetness  and  power  have  been  the  main  human  uplift 
through  all  these  later  ages. 

If  such  be  the  place  and  work  of  the  human  spirit, 
what  kind  of  life  should  we,  its  possessors,  be  living  in 
this  world  ?  Our  business,  it  seems,  is  that  God  may 
more  and  more  utter  Himself  through  us.  The  deeper 
we  descend  into  ourselves  the  surer  do  we  become  of 
this  ;  the  clearer  the  signs  of  a  Divinity  that  is  within, 
beneath,  behind  us.  The  days  and  the  years  are  for 
the  weaving  of  that  Divine  into  speech  and  act.  We 
are  here  to  help  on  the  ever-growing  kingdom,  nothing 
less  or  other.  In  the  words  of  Professor  Royce,  who 
in  his  deep,  philosophic  way  sums  up  thus  the  aim  of 
our  human  striving  :  "  When  I  seek  my  own  goal  I  am 
seeking  for  the  whole  of  myself.  In  so  far  as  my  aim 
is  the  absolute  completion  of  my  selfhood,  my  goal  is 
identical  with  the  whole  hfe  of  God." 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  INCOMPLETE 

It  is  through  the  philosophy  of  the  incomplete  that 
we  get  the  clearest  of  our  modern  hghts  on  the  mystery 
of  evil.  The  theology  of  the  conscience,  studied  from 
this  side,  is  a  theology  of  successive  completes  and 
incompletes.  St.  Paul's  pregnant  sentence,  "  I  had  not 
kno\vn  sin  except  through  the  law,"  contains  the  whole 

147  K  2 


Selections  from   Brierley 

history  of  moral  evolution.  There  was  a  stage  in  the 
preliistoric  story  when  the  human  soul — an  infant  soul 
— knew  a  moral  completeness  that  later  it  found  itself 
to  have  lost.  It  was  like  the  lost  equihbrium  of  a  good 
walker  who  is  now  learning  to  ride.  From  grace  and 
perfectness  he  has  come  to  awkwardness  and  physical 
misery.  But  the  awkwardness  and  uneasiness  that 
have  succeeded  the  earlier  ease  and  finish  are  really  a 
progress.  The  incomplete  that  has  been  reached  is 
higher  than  the  complete  that  was  left. 

So  in  the  moral  world  the  sinner,  groaning  over  his 
imperfection,  is  further  on  than  that  progenitor  of  his 
who  knew  no  sin.  What  has  made  our  man  a  sinner  } 
Not  the  performance  of  fresh  evil.  He  did  all  this 
before.  It  is  the  rise  in  him  of  a  new  ideal  of  good,  in 
the  light  of  which  the  old  life  is  seen  as  inferior  and 
tlierefore  bad.  From  a  low  grade  "  complete  "  he  has 
risen  to  a  higher  "  incomplete."  His  consciousness  of 
sin  is  really  a  great  step  upward.  The  seventh  of 
Romans,  that  agonised  wail  of  a  stricken  soul,  is  also  the 
history  of  a  soul's  ascent. 

The  imperfections  of  our  life,  its  ragged  ends,  its 
unexplained  mysteries,  arc,  truly  seen,  reasons  not  for 
gloom  but  the  contrary.  All  these  tilings  are  processes 
of  development,  are  hints  of  wonders  yet  to  come. 
That  you  are  here  is  the  thing,  immeasurably  greater, 
if  you  can  see  it,  than  that  you  are  this  or  that.  The 
actual  milestone  you  have  readied  is  not  the  point.  Is 
it  not  something  to  be  on  tlie  infinite  road  ?  Another 
thing  follows,  a  supreme  thing.  The  incomplete  in  us 
is,  above  all  else,  the  soul's  preparation  for  God.  Also 
is  it  the  abiding  and  all-sufficient  proof  of  Him.  If 
adaptation  is  evidence  of  anything,  if  the  eye  suggests 

148 


Some  Ethical  Considerations 

light  somewhere,  and  the  ear's  structure  the  existence 
of  sound  waves,  then  what  is  in  you  and  me,  the 

"  Infinite  passion,  and  the  pain 
Of  finite  hearts  that  yearn  " 

shape  one  Name  as  key  to  their  mystery.  God  is  the 
only  possible  answer  to  the  human  soul.  In  the 
Apostolic  word,  "  Ye  are  complete  in  Him,"  all 
philosophy  is  summed. 

"  Earth  changes,  but  thy  soul  and  God  stand  sure ; 
What  entered  into  thee 
That  was,  is,  and  shall  be  ; 
Time's  wheel  runs  back  or  stops  ;  Potter  and  clay  endure." 


GOOD  VERSUS  GOOD 

Nearly  all  the  difficulties,  both  of  yesterday  and 
to-day,  have  come  from  the  inability  of  one  good  to 
recognise  another.  It  has  been  so  much  easier  to  call 
names.  The  opposite  side  has  stood  for  wickedness,  or 
foolery,  or  both  ;  whereas  the  men  on  each  side  have 
been  following  the  best  they  knew.  When  Diderot 
and  his  fellow  Encyclopaedists  denounced  Christianity 
as  full  of  superstitions  and  impossible  doctrines,  their 
writings  were  tabooed  by  all  good  Catholics  as  of  the 
devil.  What  we  now  see  is  that  each  side  stood  for  a 
right  whose  victory  is  to-day  one  of  civiHsation's  most 
valuable  assets.  The  libres  fenseurs  of  the  eighteenth 
century  strove  for  the  freedom  of  investigation.  The 
system  they  fought  was  greatly  in  need  of  being  fought. 
It  was,  indeed,  stuffed  with  superstitions  and  impossible 
behefs.  The  real  Christianity  behind  that  system  is  a 
good  that  these  attacks  never  touched.  In  the  end 
the  heart's  devotion  and  the  mind's  freedom  will  know 
each  other  as  of  the  same  stock  and  qualit3^ 


Selections  from  Brierley 

The  only  rational  position  of  the  Church  to  these 
sides  of  life  is  that  of  a  good  relating  itself  properly  to 
another  good.  Between  goods  there  must  be  not 
opposition,  but  co-operation.  But  the  higher  here 
must  teach  and  lead  the  lower.  The  brightness,  the 
movement,  the  colour,  the  humour,  the  human  interest 
represented  alike  in  the  theatre  and  in  the  pubhc-house 
are  to  be  taken  into  the  Church's  scheme  for  the 
highest  furtherance  of  hfe.  For  these  are  all  of  the 
assets  of  humanity,  elements  in  its  social  evolution. 
The  problems  connected  with  them  are  so  to  be  dealt 
with  as  to  ehminate  the  baser  elements  ;  the  remains 
of  a  time  when  the  sensual  and  the  animal  were  man's 
higliest  good. 

The  theme  in  its  entirety  offers  a  new  and  fascinating 
outlook  upon  the  future.  For  it  shows  us  how  the 
very  problems  of  evil  are  really  the  marks  of  an  eternal 
progress  ;  how  man's  very  consciousness  as  a  sinner  is 
the  evidence  of  a  movement  towards  an  infinitely 
glorious  ideal  yet  to  be  reaUsed  in  him. 


150 


THE   GOSPEL  OF   HAPPINESS 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  HAPPINESS 

THE  WORLD'S  HAPPINESS 

The  dominant  spiritual  quality  of  life  is  never  more 
present  to  us  than  when  we  look  into  a  theme  Hke  this, 
of  the  world's  happiness.  Here  is  something  which 
all  men  believe  in,  for  which  all  are  thirsting. 
Happiness  is  a  rehgion  on  which  no  one  turns  his  back. 
And  yet  on  this  theme,  so  vitally  and  universally 
interesting,  what  do  we  know  ? 

How  much  happiness  is  there }  Is  the  output 
increasing  ?  Happiness  is  outside  commerciahsm. 
Yesterday's  sunshine  and  spring  beauty  filled  us  all 
with  dehght,  and  not  one  of  us  paid  a  penny  for  it. 
The  milhonaire's  entertainment,  on  the  other  hand, 
on  which  he  had  lavished  thousands,  produced  all 
manner  of  results,  duly  chronicled,  but  not  this.  That 
is  the  odd  part  of  it.  We  make  elaborate  preparations 
to  capture  what  is  as  common  as  the  air,  and  miss  it  ! 
For  the  reason  why  we  are  not  happy  is  certainly 
not  because  of  any  lack  in  the  original  supply. 

The  sense  of  the  infinite  resources  here  available 
grows  on  us  as  we  study  the  world's  history.  Happi- 
ness is  not  a  deposit  hke  a  coal  bed,  which,  after 
being  drawn  upon  for  years,  shows  signs  of  giving  out. 
The  experience  is  rather  of  an  immeasurable  supply 
which  only  awaits  a  growing  capacity  to  use  it. 

153 


Selections  from  Brierley 

This  joy  world,  as  it  emerges  into  its  higher  fomis, 
shows  itself  as  something  entirely  spiritual.  How 
remote  it  is  from  that  of  commercial  calculation  is 
seen  when  we  examine  the  way  in  which  happiness 
comes,  grows,  and  distributes  itself.  Happiness  is 
the  outflow  of  life,  the  communication  of  it  from  one 
soul  to  another.  It  is  the  rhythmic  movement  of  a 
spirit's  peace  and  joy  which,  by  a  beautiful  law,  propa- 
gates itself  and  impinges  upon  other  spirits.  And 
the  movement  here  partakes  of  infinity  in  its  exhaust- 
less  energy. 

Happiness  is  a  secret  of  Hving,  and  so  the  world's 
immeasurably  greatest  benefactors  have  been  those 
who  have  caught  that  secret  and  imparted  it  to  others. 
The  Church's  communion  at  its  purest  has  ever  been 
the  gathering  together  of  souls  who  have  'a  secret  to 
impart.  There  is  no  joy  comparable  to  that  which 
thrills  upon  us  from  contact  with  some  highest  soul. 
That  was  why  men  gave  up  all  and  followed  Jesus. 

The  State  can  do  much  to  organise  happiness.  We 
are  on  the  eve  of  vast  developments  in  this  direction, 
developments  in  which  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  the 
unprotected,  will  find  themselves  backed  by  the 
highest  intelligence,  the  highest  conscience,  and  the 
best  resources  of  the  community  to  which  they  belong. 
In  a  railway  train  every  passenger,  the  stupidest  as 
well  as  the  wisest,  shares  in  the  skill  of  the  engineer, 
the  skill  that  built  the  road  and  tliat  carries  him  along 
it.  What  we  are  now  endeavouring  for  is  that,  in  hke 
manner,  every  man,  woman  and  child  of  the  com- 
munity shall  have,  for  the  favourable  issue  of  their 
hfe-battle,  not  only  what  capacity  lies  in  their  own 
poor  body  and  mind,  but  the  reinforcement  of  the 

154 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

nation's  highest  brain  and  heart,  to  shield,  to  encourage 
and  to  inspire. 

In  the  highest  spheres  it  is  the  personal  that  gives 
us  our  joy,  and  all  along  the  hne  it  is  in  this  same 
personal  that  we  find  it.  The  best  gift  we  can  offer 
our  friends  is  the  best  in  ourselves.  Is  it  not  worth 
thinking  of,  the  extent  to  which  by  our  simple  being 
and  doing  we  can  increase  the  world's  happiness  ? 
We  can  add  definitely  to  this  treasure  every  day. 
Scientists  speak  of  matter  and  force  in  the  universe 
as  being  a  constant,  the  amount  being  never  added  to 
nor  diminished.  But  herein  the  spiritual  transcends 
the  material.  Here  is  a  value  that  can  incessantly 
grow.  Whatever  our  station  may  be,  our  gifts  or  lack 
of  them,  we  can,  by  willing  it,  add  continuously  to  the 
sum  of  human  joy.  And  this,  after  all,  is  the  world's 
best  possession. 

THE  JOY  OF  LIVING 

It  is  something,  as  a  start  in  the  world,  to  be  con- 
vinced on  good  grounds  that  the  Ordainer  of  our  hfe 
on  tliis  planet  intended  joy  as  one  of  its  chief  products. 
That  it  means  other  things  —  service,  sacrifice, 
education,  development,  probation,  as  well  as  a 
thousand  aims  beyond  our  ken — we  may  well  beHeve. 
But  one  of  its  governing  designs  is  the  joy  of  Hving. 
If  there  is  proof  of  anything  there  is  proof  of  that.  It 
peeps  out  of  every  detail  of  the  scheme.  Human 
dehght,  and  not  human  only,  but  that  of  all  living 
creatures,  is  one  at  least  of  the  world's  ultimate  ends. 

The  happiness  idea,  while  so  deeply  interfused  into 
the  constitution  of  Nature,  is  seated  even  more  deeply 

155 


Selections   jfrom  Bricrley 

in  the  heart  of  man.  But  the  happiness  material 
requires  extracting,  and  for  this  there  are  some  rules. 
The  soul  must  in  some  positive  directions  be  trained  to 
enjoy.  It  must,  for  one  thing,  learn  to  be  simple. 
The  art  of  being  happy  is  the  art  of  discovering  the 
depths  that  lie  in  the  daily  common  things.  Dehght 
in  the  simple  is  the  finest  result  of  culture.  The  man 
of  simple  mind,  of  purged  eye  and  pure  heart,  walks 
daily  wrapt  in  the  consciousness  of  being  in  the  midst 
of  a  universe  Divinely  beautiful,  and  which  is  all  his. 

The  secret  of  the  joy  of  living  is  the  proper  appre- 
ciation of  what  we  actually  possess.  That  kingdom  of 
the  unpossessed  for  which  we  so  foohshly  thirst  is 
not  half  so  good  as  this  of  what  we  have.  When 
we  have  fairly  understood  the  worth  of  our  personal 
gifts  ;  what  it  means  to  be  able  to  swing  along  in 
careless  freedom  of  limb,  to  open  clear  eyes  upon  the 
world's  beauty,  to  eat  with  appetite,  to  reason,  to 
remember,  to  imagine,  instead  of  being  reduced  to  the 
privation  of  these  tilings,  we  find  we  are  rich  where  we 
thought  ourselves  poor.  The  worst  is  where  we  lightly 
value  our  wealth  in  love.  Multitudes  of  us  are  fuming 
in  a  false  sense  of  poverty  when  close  at  home  are 
faithful  hearts  that,  if  taken  from  us,  as  they  might 
be  next  week,  would  leave  a  void  that  not  the  wealth 
of  Indies  would  fill.  We  are  only  poor  by  thinking 
ourselves  so.  It  is,  in  fact,  our  perverse  thinking  that 
every  day  makes  fools  of  us. 

The  Gospel  account  of  Jesus  stands  out  here  as  the 
typical,  highest  example.  In  the  beginning  was  the 
exquisite  joy  of  a  pure  heart  in  the  presence  of  Nature, 
when  the  flowers  and  the  birds  proclaimed  the  goodness 
of  the  Father.     At  the  end  this  soul,  ever  learning  and 

156 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

growing,  had  reached  a  capacity  such  that  the  Cross, 
striking  full  upon  it,  evoked  only  a  deeper  harmony. 
The  joy  which,  at  the  Supper,  Jesus  offered  His 
disciples,  was  richer  than  that  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.  And  this  marvel  has  continued.  Men  have 
learned  from  Christ  how  to  find  joy  in  pain  ;  how  to  be 
happy  when  suffering  and  dying.  To  the  soul  that 
learns,  hfe  at  what  seems  its  darkest  and  its  worst  is 
realised  as  infinitely  worth  hving.  Courage,  then,  in 
the  gloomy  day.  "  If  winter  comes,  can  spring  be  far 
behind  ?  " 

"  Be  our  joy  three  parts  pain, 
Strive  and  hold  cheap  the  strain. 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang;    dare,  never  grudge  the 
throe  !  " 


THE  DISCIPLINE  OF  JOY 

The  human  story  so  far  has  been  largely  that  of 
a  discipline  of  pain.  On  this  point  science  and  religion 
are  for  once  in  agreement.  Man  has  won  his  present 
position  at  the  sword's  point,  and  with  sweat  of  blood. 
Nature  has  been  a  rigid  discipHnarian,  a  stern  task- 
mistress.  But  the  pain  element  in  human  education 
has  been  exaggerated,  and  the  wrong  inferences  been 
drawn.  From  the  very  beginning,  notwithstanding 
its  hardships,  life  has  been  sweet  to  the  race.  Our 
ancestor  was  happy  in  his  own  way.  Despite  the 
cost,  it  was  a  good  thing  for  him  to  be  alive.  A  false 
perspective  here  has  been  the  creator,  amongst  both 
heathen  and  Christian,  of  much  bad  theology.  The 
sorrow  element  in  man,  exaggerated  by  his  imagination, 
has  cast  its  shadow  upon  the  heavens,  and  created  the 

157 


Selections  from  Brierley 

religion  of  fear.  Paganism  trembled  as  it  snatched  its 
joy.  It  hardly  dared  to  be  prosperous,  lest  some  god, 
or  malignant  power,  should  be  pro\'oked  to  jealousy. 

Unfortunately  for  Christian  theology,  the  noble 
and  clear-sighted  \'iews  of  the  early  Greek  Fathers 
were  superseded  by  a  darker  system,  which  once  more 
shadowed  the  heavens  and  made  religion  a  thing  of 
fear.  Asceticism  founded  itself  on  the  notion  that 
human  suffering  and  privation  were  in  themselves 
pleasing  to  God.  But  asceticism,  the  cult  of  many  a 
noble  soul,  carried  in  it  no  finality.  It  was  a  phase, 
and  not  a  whole.  It  was  no  key  to  the  world-system, 
no  ultimate  revelation  of  God,  no  ultimate  goal  of 
human  development. 

Can  man,  then,  afford  to  enjoy  himself  more  than 
he  has  done  ?  Is  gladness,  as  well  as  sorrow,  to  be 
trusted  as  a  spiritual  educator  ?  The  average  Christian 
is,  on  this  matter,  in  a  curious  jumble  of  thinking. 
Logically  he  should  be  all  on  the  side  of  joy  as  supreme 
moraliser,  for  is  not  his  heaven  at  once  the  place  of 
vastest  delight,  and  j-et  of  highest  perfection  ?  But 
with  the  other  side  of  his  head  he  distrusts  this  doctrine. 

In  a  normal,  healthy  condition,  enjoyment  is  con- 
nected with  our  every  movement,  our  every  phase  of 
living.  And  ever  as  we  get  deeper  into  life  the  springs 
become  more  numerous  and  more  copious  in  their 
flow.  As  this  education,  this  discipline  of  joy  reaches 
its  higher  stages,  the  mind  chooses  its  delights  as  by 
instinct,  and  with  a  certain  infallibility.  And  in  these 
upper  ranges  what  exquisite  distillations  and  essences 
of  noblest  consciousness  await  the  developed  soul  ! 
Irenaeus  has  expressed  for  us  in  unsurpassable  words  the 
consummation  of  this  "  discipUne  of  joy  "  :    "  For  our 

158 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

face  shall  see  the  face  of  the  Lord,  and  shall  rejoice  with 
joy  unspeakable,  that  is  to  say  when  it  shall  behold 
its  own  Delight." 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  ANTICIPATION 

What  is  pleasure,  and  wherein  does  it  consist  ? 
We  study  half-a-dozen  persons  seeking  it  in  different 
ways.  One  is  reading  a  novel,  a  second  is  journeying 
through  noble  scener\^  a  third  is  engaged  on  a  problem 
in  chess  or  mathematics,  a  fourth  is  eating  or  drinking, 
or  satisfying  some  other  animal  appetite.  If  we 
examine  the  consciousness  of  the  actual  moment  in 
the  case  of  any  one  of  these,  we  shall  find  that  in  each 
case  the  mind  is  not  resting  in  that  moment,  as  though 
satisfied  in  it,  but  pressing  out  of  it  towards  something 
beyond.  What  is  more,  the  something  beyond  is 
never  reached.  The  novel-reader  hurries  on  from  page 
to  page,  as  though  expecting,  when  the  plot  is  fully 
unravelled  and  the  story  told,  that  some  desirable  end 
will  have  been  gained.  But  the  end  gained  is  vacuity 
■ — a  sense  of  being  flung  back  by  the  last  sentence 
upon  one's  own  empty  self.  In  like  manner  men 
rush  through  the  differing  phases  of  a  form  of  animal 
sensation  as  though  the  consummation  could  furnish 
the  prize.  What  they  find  there  is,  again,  a  dead  wall, 
against  which  the  baffled  consciousness  helplessly 
dashes  itself ;  and  so  through  ev^ery  other  pursuit. 
In  this  view  of  it,  life,  even  at  its  highest  moments, 
seems  one  vast  and  perpetual  anticipation.  It  may  be 
none  the  worse  for  that.  May  we  not  take  this  wonder- 
ful law  as  the  surest  and  most  plainly  written  of  the 
prophecies  concerning  man's  relation  to  a  future  and 

159 


Selections  from  Brierley 

higher  state  of  being  ?  It  is  when  contemplating  this 
side  of  things  that  we  feel  the  weight  of  Plato's  argu- 
ment— that  what  the  human  soul,  shut  up  in  its  mortal 
prison-house,  deals  with  in  the  present  life  is  only  the 
outward  show  of  the  actual,  and  that  for  the  Reality 
which  will  satisfy  it  we  must  wait.  In  that  pathetic 
struggle  of  Greek  philosophy  with  the  problem  of 
life  and  its  result  we  may  surely  recognise  a  preparatio 
evangelica — a  Divinely-ordered  introduction  to  the 
kingdom  and  teaching  of  Jesus. 

ENJOYMENT  AS  A  VIRTUE 

Ought  we  to  enjoy  ourselves  ?  The  question  is 
worth  asking,  because  there  is  a  good  deal  of  religion 
and  of  theology  that  suggests  or  implies  the  contrary. 
The  praise  of  melancholy,  as  our  only  proper  attitude, 
has  also  appeared,  especially  in  these  later  days,  in 
some  of  our  philosophy  and  literature.  With  numbers 
of  pious  persons  laughter  is  at  a  discount.  How  dare 
a  man  joke  while  the  Judge  is  at  the  door  ?  High 
spirits  are  a  peril  to  the  soul.  M'Cheyne  of  Dundee 
confessed  that  the  ministerial  function  which  he  liked 
least  was  to  celebrate  a  wedding.  The  idea  to-day  is 
very  widely  spread,  both  amongst  the  religious  and 
the  non-religious,  that  the  music  to  which  the  Church 
moves  is  a  funeral  march.  The  idea  of  taking  this 
world  as  a  really  good  place  ;  of  accepting  the  present 
moment,  the  fact  of  existence,  as  a  thing  to  be  happy 
in,  is  held  by  philosophy  to  be  an  illusion,  by  many 
Christians  as  a  sort  of  impiety. 

Whatever  the  case  for  philosoph3^  this  attitude  in 
religion  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  singular  one.     It  is  so 

i6o 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

self-contradictory.  Nobody  thinks  of  gloom  and  long 
faces  in  the  celestial  spheres.  Everything  there,  if 
we  take  the  accepted  notion,  is  arrayed  on  a  basis  of 
the  utmost  wealth  of  living.  If  enjoyment  is  good  in 
heaven,  it  should  be  good  on  earth.  All  the  churches, 
all  the  theologies  agree  that  it  is  a  Christian  duty  to 
labour  for  the  welfare,  the  happiness,  of  others.  But 
if  happiness  is  good  for  these  others — else  why  are  we 
to  labour  for  it  ? — then  it  must  be  good  for  ourselves. 
If  it  be  not,  then  are  we  not  doing  our  neighbour  a 
wrong  in  trying  to  secure  him  so  dangerous  a  com- 
modity ?  The  world  is  still  full  of  self-torturers. 
Scourges  are  still  on  sale.  People  go  into  convents, 
into  monasteries,  shave  their  heads,  wear  ugly  dresses, 
shut  their  eyes  to  the  world's  splendours,  in  the  belief 
that  the  celestial  powers  are  pleased  with  all  this. 
And  multitudes  of  earnest  Protestants,  who  exclaim 
against  monkery,  build  themselves  an  interior  cell, 
gloomy  as  any  anchorite's,  where  their  soul  Hves  a 
tormented  and  sunless  hfe.  They  cannot  get  rid  of  the 
belief  that  sanctity  has  some  sacred  affinity  with 
sourness  ;  that  to  reach  heaven  they  must  journey 
with  flints  in  their  shoes.  Yet  the  saints,  and  the 
Master  they  followed,  never  renounced  the  good  of  the 
world  ;  no,  nor  the  joy  of  living.  Jesus  was  the 
happiest  being  in  the  world  of  the  first  century,  and 
Francis  of  Assisi  in  the  thirteenth.  They  accepted  the 
joy  of  the  senses,  only  in  a  simpler  and  a  larger  way. 
They  had  nothing  that  they  might  possess  all.  Was 
there  a  soul  elsewhere  who  felt  as  deeply  as  they  the 
glory  of  the  sunrise,  the  song  of  birds,  the  fellowship 
with  all  creatures,  the  thrill  of  human  society,  the 
happiness   of   loving,   the   joy   of   uttermost   giving  ? 

j6i  L 


Selections  from  Brierley 

They  showed  men  the  lesson  our  stilted,  laboured 
civilisation  is  to-day  most  in  need  of — that  not  the 
rich  and  the  luxurious  only,  but  all  men,  those  most 
naked  of  everything  that  wealth  commands,  have  a 
glorious  world  to  live  in,  if  only  they  will  use  it  well. 

We  are  missing  the  lesson  of  hfe,  the  plain  duty 
it  enjoins  upon  us,  if  we  do  not  enjoy  it.  We  talk 
of  service  to  our  fellow,  but  there  is  no  better  service 
we  can  render  than  to  show  him  a  smiling  face.  That 
is  our  personal  advertisement  of  the  fact  that  God's 
world  is  a  good  one,  and  that  he  may  take  heart  in 
believing  it.  Enjoyment  is  to  be  cultivated  as  a 
virtue  ;  to  be  cultivated  because  it  is  largely  an  art. 
It  is  from  our  stupidity  that  we  so  often  miss  it. 
"  God's  in  His  heaven,"  sings  the  poet ;  yes,  and  in 
His  earth,  too,  and  that  is  why  it  is  good  to  be  alive. 

RELIGION   AND   HUMOUR 

It  is  by  the  faculties  with  which  God  has  endued 
men  and  races  that  He  makes  Himself  known.  He 
pours  His  thought  through  human  brains.  The  Greek 
has  taught  us  one  set  of  truths,  the  Roman  another, 
the  Jew  a  third.  All  the  sciences  are  branches  of 
theology,  for  they  show  us  the  separate  roads  along 
which  the  Divine  thought  has  travelled.  And  amongst 
these  heaven-revealing  gifts  assuredly  we  cannot  leave 
out  humour.  The  faculty  of  laughter  is  too  intrinsically 
human  not  to  carry  its  message.  It  is  not  here  by 
chance,  nor  by  manufacture.  It  is  a  side  of  God's 
nature,  and  its  revelation  is  immense. 

It  is  the  assurance,  for  one  thing,  that  we  are  in  a 
good  and  wholesome  world.     Nature  hkes  to  play  with 

162 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

us.  We  are  now  entering  into  her  humour.  We  do 
not  take  it  amiss  that  she  deluded  our  fathers  so 
dehciously  for  thousands  of  years,  making  them  beheve 
the  sun  went  round  the  earth,  that  there  were  four 
elements,  that  the  world  was  fiat,  and  a  thousand  other 
drolleries.  She  was  dealing  with  them,  we  now  per- 
ceive, exactly  as  we  deal  with  our  own  children, 
telling  them  as  much  as  they  are  ready  to  know,  and 
laughing,  as  we  do,  in  her  sleeve  at  httle  mystifications 
which  must  serve  the  young  world  till  it  was  of  age  to 
know  better. 

It  is  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  kindred  races  that  the 
faculty  of  humour,  developed  to  a  degree  unknown 
elsewhere,  has  blended  most  perfectly  with  the  rehgious 
spirit.  Its  spiritual  men  have  been  humorists.  They 
have  found  humour  in  themselves,  humour  in  the 
universe,  humour  in  God. 

The  characteristic  is  noteworthy  of  our  English 
divines  of  all  persuasions.  Your  cleric,  whether  he  be 
Episcopahan,  or  Presbyterian,  or  Methodist,  has  always 
his  fund  of  good  stories.  Is  his  mirth  a  reaction  from 
the  gravity  of  his  professional  pursuits  ;  or  from  the 
fact  that,  having  been  looking  habitually  at  the  inmost 
centre  of  life,  he  has  found  it  a  centre  of  brightness 
and  good  cheer  ?  Both  suppositions  have  their  truth. 
Altogether  'tis  a  pleasant  feature.  It  has  made  the 
pulpit  a  homeher,  a  more  human  place.  What  could 
be  more  delightful  than  the  way  in  which  Father 
Taylor,  of  Boston,  beloved  of  the  sailors,  most  devoted 
of  evangelists,  extricated  himself  from  an  impossible 
sentence  ?  "  Brethren,  I  have  got  into  this  sentence, 
and  for  the  life  of  me  I  cannot  see  how  I  am  going  to 
get  out  of  it ;  but  one  thing  I  know — I  am  on  the  way 

163  L2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

to  Zion.  Hallelujah  !  "  What  a  humorist  was 
Spurgeon  !  We  have  heard  him  keep  an  audience  of 
ministers  in  roars  of  laughter  for  an  hour  together. 
Yet  who  more  fervent  in  devotion,  more  mighty  in 
faith,  more  penetrated  with  the  deepest  reahties  ! 

Great  natures  can  afford  to  laugh.  It  does  them 
good,  and  the  world,  too.  Their  mirth  carries  its  own 
brand  with  it.  We  never  mistake  it  for  the  cackle  of 
fools  or  the  cynicism  of  soulless  worldlings.  It  carries 
with  it  all  their  faith,  all  their  sunshine.  Humour  in 
such  is  often  sublime.  It  is  the  triumph  over  fear. 
Humour  is  the  delight  of  wise  men  and  the  pitfall 
of  fools.  None  of  our  gifts  need  more  of  grace  in  its 
use.  We  need  to  capture  and  train  its  strength  for 
the  higher  service  of  man  ;  its  flashing  beam  for  the 
discovery  of  folly  ;  •  it  lambent  play  for  the  cheer  of 
weaiy  hearts.  True  humour  is  full  of  religion.  It  is 
in  itself  a  revelation.  That  we  can  laugh  is  a  proof  that 
the  world  is  sound  and  that  God  is  good.  It  is  safe  to 
cultivate  it,  for  unless  all  the  omens  deceive,  there  will 
be  more  of  it  in  the  next  world  than  in  this. 

RELIGION  AND   AMUSEMENT 

Rehgion  and  amusement ;  the  two  things  are  here 
together  on  this  God's  earth  of  ours  ;  have  been  here 
from  the  beginning  ;  and  we  have  not  found  yet  the 
formula  which  unites  them.  Piety  still  looks  askance 
at  comedy,  and  knows  not  what  terms  it  should  make 
with  it.  It  is  singular  that  in  a  world  which  has 
never  been  without  philosophers,  there  should  have  been 
all  along,  on  a  theme  so  vital,  a  confusion  so  utter. 
Cicero  introduces  the  question  of  the  significance  of 

164 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

laughter  only  to  dismiss  it  as  insoluble.  Christian 
thinlcers  handle  amusement  from  all  manner  of  stand- 
points, but  end  generally  by  leaving  their  theme  in 
the  air. 

But  the  pessimistic  point  of  view,  both  Christian  and 
non-Christian,  despite  the  support  it  receives  from 
the  miserable  misuse  of  amusement,  does  not  satisfy 
us.  Nor  does  another  religious  view,  still  in  vogue 
in  some  quarters,  which  regards  gaiety  and  laughter 
as  not  countenanced  by  the  example  of  Christ  or  by 
the  teaching  of  the  Gospel.  The  mediaeval  Church, 
with  all  its  faults,  understood  this  side  of  human  nature 
better.  In  its  miracle  plays,  out  of  which,  let  us 
remember,  the  modern  theatre  arose,  the  full  swing 
of  broadest  humour  in  immediate  contact  with  all 
that  was  sacred,  while  giving  rude  shocks  to  our 
modern  susceptibihties,  contained,  nevertheless,  the 
hint  of  a  truth  which  the  Puritan  could  not  see. 

The  mistake  about  amusement  is  that  men  invert 
its  position.  They  go  to  amusement  to  get  from  it 
a  satisfaction  in  hfe,  whereas  it  is  not  till  men  have 
obtained  life's  satisfaction  that  they  are  in  a  condition 
to  be  amused.  The  soul  can  never  be  satisfied  with 
anything  lower  than  itself.  Until  its  deepest  want  has 
been  met  its  harp  is  on  the  willows.  It  cannot  sing 
in  exile. 

The  Christian  Church  needs  in  the  present  day  to 
know  its  mind  on  the  subject  of  amusements.  It 
cannot  ignore  or  taboo  them,  for  its  own  teaching, 
properly  interpreted,  shows  them  to  enter  deeply 
into  the  Divine  scheme  of  life.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
must  never  forget  that  the  prime  function  of  religion 
is   to  supply  the  inner  reconciliation  without  which 

165 


Selections  from  Brierley 

there  is  no  true  amusement  possible.  The  soul  cannot 
laugli  its  own  laugh  till  God  has  filled  it.  The  Church 
has  also  to  teach  the  world  the  ethics  of  amusement. 
The  "  gaiety  of  nations  "  can  only  increase  as  men 
imbibe  Christ's  unselfishness.  It  will  come  never, 
let  us  be  sure,  out  of  greed,  or  pride,  or  egotism.  When, 
in  society,  we  are  passing  a  pleasant  evening,  be  sure 
that  at  the  bottom  of  it  lie  somebody's  loving  thought 
and  self-sacrificing  labour. 

The  Church,  for  ages,  with  more  or  less  success, 
has  been  teaching  men  to  pray.     It  has  also,  it  now 
reahses,  to  teach  them  to  play.     It  must  widen  its 
programme  until  it  takes  in  the  whole  man.     It  must 
renounce  for  ever  the  view  which  made  seriousness 
take  offence  at  mirth,  knowing  that  each  is  from  the 
same  source,  and  works  to  the  same  end.     Its  attitude 
to  humanity  must  be  less  of  a  menace  and  more  of  an 
encouragement.     For  ages  has  it  busied  itself  with  the 
religious  meaning  of  tears.     Let  it  now  investigate  a 
httle  more  the  religious  meaning  of  laughter.     Men, 
we  learn  on  the  highest  authority,  are  to  become  cliil- 
dren    to   understand   the   kingdom   of   heaven.      The 
cliildren's    play    is    God's    pledge.     The    child-heart 
delivers  to  us  the  open  secret.     In  the  midst  of  this 
tremendous  universe,  with  all  its  mystery  and  all  its 
tragedy,  these  little  ones,  nearest  to  the  centre,  are 
light  of  heart.     The    Church   can  build  its   doctrine 
on  that  fact.     In  it  is  contained  the  whole  Gospel. 

SUNSHINE   IN  THE   SOUL 

Important  as  is  the  sunshine  in  things,  vastly  more 
so  is  the  sunshine  in  ourselves,  in  the  soul.     We  get 

i66 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

the  solar  beam  out  of  our  coal  and  wood  by  mechanical 
processes.  But  lying  over  these  is  the  moral  process 
by  which  the  spirit  extracts  from  things  another 
sunshine,  a  light  and  warmth  that  come  from  a  sun 
behind  the  sun.  Personal  happiness  and,  we  may  say, 
usefulness,  are  just  the  art  of  extracting  this  sunshine. 
It  is  a  secret  of  faith  ;  a  certainty,  inwardly  grounded, 
that  the  sunshine  is  there  ;  in  the  most  unlikely  things  ; 
that  circumstances  as  black  as  coal  will  yield  it, 
just  as  the  coal  yields  sunshine  when  handled  the 
right  way. 

This,  surely,  is  what  Carlyle  means  when  he  asks  : 
"  Is  not  serene  or  complete  rehgion  the  highest  aspect 
of  h\unan  nature  ?  "     The  rehgion  here  is  one  which 
makes  us  at  home  in  our  universe  as  essentially  a  good 
universe,  ready  to  bless  us  as  far  as  we  will  let  it.     An 
inner  indomitable  cheerfulness  is  the  soul's  response 
to  the  Divine  goodness.     In  a  gracious  nature  it  burns 
there  with  a  steady  flame,  like  the  household  fire  on 
a  winter's  night.     Our  first   duty   to  our  fellows  is 
to  kindle  this  fire  for  them,  to  show  them  a  shining 
face.     Is  there  a  worse  sin  against  them  than  a  dour 
despondency  ?     Immeasurably  higher  than  our  clever- 
ness, our  deftness  here  and  there,  as  a  service  to  our 
fellows,  is  that  we  carry  amongst  them  a  spirit  of  good 
cheer.     Away  with  what  is  contrary  to  that ;    with 
your  bihous  theologies,  your  pessimistic  philosophies. 
Men  with  no  good  message  to  the  world  should  be 
silenced.     Their  hypochondriasms,  whether  in  rehgion 
or  elsewhere,  are  poisons  whose  sale  should  be  stopped. 
Till  I  have  found  a  word  with  sunshine  in  it  I  have  no 
right  to  speak. 

Through  immeasurable  ages  the  sun  tas  been  making 

167 


Selections  from  Brierlev 

our  world  ;  storing  its  crust  with  mineral  treasures, 
filling  its  atmosphere  with  mystic  forces  ;  drying  it, 
warming  it,  making  it  habitable  for  the  humanity 
that  was  to  live  there.  And  man,  finding  himself 
here,  discerns  that  all  he  looks  upon,  that  all  the 
physical  forces  which  play  round  him,  are  symbols 
of  something  higher  still  ;  that  behind  the  visible 
sun  is  another  ;  that  behind  the  physical  universe  is 
a  spiritual  universe  also,  warmed  and  hghted,  alive 
with  glorious  forces  ;  that  here,  too,  is  endless  progress 
— a  progress  in  which  he  participates.  The  sun  in 
this  heaven  is  the  hving  God,  from  whose  eternal 
Being  are  being  poured  forth  upon  us  treasures  of 
revealing  and  of  life  that  through  the  ages  past  have 
been  making  man  into  what  he  is,  and  that  through 
the  ages  to  come  will  be  building  him  into  something 
greater  than  he  knows. 

FRIENDSHIP 

The  best  friendships,  as  a  rule,  are  those  that  begin 
young.  Life's  iron  is  then  fire-hot,  and  we  weld  easily. 
And  the  special  happiness  here  is  that,  properly 
managed,  these  unions  are  often  for  all  the  years. 
In  the  college  common  room  we  stumble  upon  a  brother 
soul  which  vibrates  responsive  to  our  own,  and  now 
after  three  or  four  decades,  and  when  we  are  almost  at 
the  end  of  the  journey,  the  music  is  still  going  on. 
Our  careers  have  been  wade  apart,  our  fortunes  different, 
our  meetings  perhaps  infrequent ;  and  yet  the  mere 
sense  that  our  friend  is  yonder,  thinking  his  thoughts 
and  doing  his  work,  is  a  strength  and  a  companionship 
to  us.     How  much  so,  we  shall  know  when  he  has  gone. 

i68 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

A  soulful  intimacy  of  this  kind  acquires  an  ever  better 
flavour  with  the  years.  And  here  it  is  that  a  mere 
self-seeking  ambition  defeats  itself  in  the  search  for 
the  prizes  of  Hfe.  In  the  rush  for  worldly  advance- 
ment, our  pusher,  eager  for  more  brilliant  alliances, 
drops  his  old  friends,  or,  what  is  worse,  adopts  towards 
them  an  attitude  of  condescension.  What  he  has 
gained  in  this  process  we  will  not  inquire.  We  know 
what  he  has  lost.  Such  a  man  has  no  friends.  To 
apply  this  title  to  his  new  entourage  would  be  too 
cynical.  And  the  friendless  man,  whatever  height  he 
has  cHmbed  to,  is  surely  a  being  to  be  pitied. 

The  ideal  friendships  come  from  the  knitting  in 
each  other  of  our  nobler  parts.  Fellowship  in  great 
enterprises,  a  common  aspiration  concerning  Hfe's 
deepest  things,  are  their  truest  foundation.  This  it 
is  which  makes  a  genuine  rehgious  communion  so 
uniquely  beautiful  a  thing.  When  men  can  find  a 
real  spiritual  leader,  the  union  of  soul  between  him  and 
them  is  heaven's  own  marriage.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  sphere  of  feehng  so  exquisite. 

Our  inner  progress  could  be  accurately  measured  by 
the  range  and  quahty  of  our  friendship.  As  tlie 
quahty  heightens  the  range  extends.  "  Qui  Deum 
amat,  amat  onines,"  as  Leibnitz  says.  We  sympathise 
with  that  saying  of  St.  Teresa  about  the  demons  : 
"  How  unhappy — they  do  not  love  !  "  And  in  loving 
men  we  learn,  as  Fenelon  said  to  Destouches,  "  to 
expect  httle  from  them."  Why,  indeed,  should  you 
look  for  this  and  the  other  in  return  ?  Is  not  the  pure 
joy  of  loving  and  serving  reward  enough  in  itself  ? 
As  you  travel  along  this  hne  it  becomes  more  and  more 
difficult     to    hate.      We    hardly    need    Augustine's 

169 


Selections  from  Brierley 

reminder  :  "  Most  often  when  you  think  you  are  hating 
an  enemy,  you  are  hating  your  brother  without  knowing 
it."  Friendship  of  this  order,  fed  and  inspired  from 
the  highest  sources,  beginning  its  action  in  the  private 
circle  of  those  nearest  us,  spreads  and  spreads  till  it 
encompasses  the  world.  And  it  will  be  the  growth  of 
this  power,  more  than  the  achievements  of  science  or 
the  harnessing  of  the  world's  physical  forces,  that  will 
ultimately  bring  to  our  race  its  age  of  gold. 

THE  ETHIC  OF  FATIGUE 

Fatigue,  we  are  beginning  to  discover,  is  one  of  the 
first-class  themes  in  modern  hfe.  It  is  an  affair  not 
simply  of  medicine  and  hygiene,  but  of  morals,  of 
philosophy,  of  religion — in  fact,  of  the  entire  human 
welfare.  There  is  an  ethic  of  fatigue,  almost  a  religion 
of  it.  In  that  reconstruction  of  the  ethical  and 
religious  idea  which  is  arising  out  of  a  clearer  knowledge 
of  the  contents  of  consciousness,  this  subject  will  occupy 
a  foremost  place. 

What  is  fatigue  ?  It  is  curious  how  hazy  the  average 
notion  is.  We  know  it  as  a  phase  of  feeling  associated 
with  certain  physical  states.  When  by  walking, 
singing,  hammering,  or  other  exercises,  the  muscles 
and  nerves  employed  have  given  off  a  certain  amount 
of  energy,  the  fact  is  registered  on  our  consciousness, 
and  we  say  wc  are  tired.  The  whole  of  the  body  is 
working,  perpetually  giving  off  energy.  But  it  is  only 
a  portion  of  the  body  that  produces  fatigue  as  a 
sensation.  The  blood  circulates,  the  heart  performs 
its  rhythmic  motion,  the  hver  secretes,  the  cells  in  their 
myriads  form  and  reform,  and  all  this  without  sense  of 

170 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

weariness.     Fatigue,   as   felt,   belongs  purely   to   the 
voluntary  nerves  and  muscles. 

Fatigue  is  an  affair  of  life,  of  sentient  beings.  There 
is  no  tiredness  in  the  universe.  Its  sum  of  infinite 
energy  continues  from  age  to  age  its  stupendous, 
complicated  movement,  without  trace  of  exhaustion. 
The  cosmos  as  a  whole  amid  eternal  change  retains 
eternal  freshness.  But  there  is  discernible  in  history 
such  a  thing  as  a  fatigue  of  races.  A  population  over- 
driven by  labour,  or  exhausted  by  its  passions,  will 
become  old  and  decrepit  before  its  time.  To  keep 
a  nation  young  is  the  highest  task  of  social  economy, 
and  that  can  only  be  achieved  by  knowledge  of  the 
whole  complex  law  of  hving. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  as  individuals  and  as  a  people 

we  need  a  philosophy  and  a  rehgion  of  fatigue  and  of 

rest.     When   our   activities   go   beyond   their   Hmit ; 

when  we  work  not  from  our  overflow,  but  from  the 

dregs  of  our  vitality  ;  when  we  keep  going,  not  by  sleep 

and  rest,  but  by  the  stimulant  and  the  spur,  we  are 

sinning  against  the  whole  Decalogue  of  Hfe.     If  we 

would  see  our  highest,  we  must  Hmit  the  output.     We 

must  never  let  work  choke  our  top  springs.     For  joy 

is  not  only  our  heritage  ;   it  is  our  duty.     "  La  joie  de 

I'esprit,"  said  Ninon,  "  en  marque  la  force."     We  want 

gladness  enough,  not  only  to  flood  our  own  hfe,  but  to 

flow  over  perpetually  upon  our  neighbour.     And  there 

is  no  gladness  in  exhaustion.     The  highest  philosophy 

of  living  is  to  work  as  the  universe  works,  and  to  rest 

as  it  rests.     We  want  to  catch  for  ourselves  the  secret 

of  that  mighty  cosmic  rhythm  ;•  to  catch  the  secret  of 

its  storing  and  of  its  giving  forth  of  energy  ;    of  its 

repose  and  its  multitudinous  motion.     The  universe 

171 


Selections  from  Brierley 

finds  its  rest  in  the  interplay  of  a  myriad  of  interests. 
That  is  how  we  shall  find  ours.  The  wider  the  key- 
board the  less  strain  on  this  note  and  that.  The  vaster 
the  music  we  make  the  longer  will  the  instrument 
last. 

HOLIDAYS 

The  annual  summer  holiday  may  be  said  to  have 
definitely  estabhshed  itself  as  an  integral  part  of  modern 
life.  To  leave  one's  ordinary  pursuits  and  one's 
ordinary  haunts  for  a  certain  number  of  weeks  in 
August  or  September  has,  with  a  vast  mass  of  the 
toihng  community,  become  a  fixed  habit.  The  annual 
break  from  the  harness  finds  us  quite  ready  for  it  when 
it  comes,  and  the  year's  total  output  of  activity  is,  in 
the  vast  majority  of  cases,  the  better,  in  respect  both 
of  quantity  and  quality,  for  that  brief  release. 

But  holidays  may  very  easily  be  overrated  in  their 
relation  either  to  the  enjoyment  or  the  general  further- 
ance of  life.  It  would  indeed  be  a  pessimistic  view 
which  should  regard  the  main  body  of  the  year's 
experiences  as  a  dull,  unrelieved  mass,  through  which 
the  thin  streak  of  vacation  time  shone  as  the  only  Hne 
of  light.  Nature,  happily,  has  taken  care  that  we  shall 
not  fall  into  that  mistake.  In  her  constitution,  both 
of  the  human  mind  and  of  external  circumstance,  she 
has  provided  a  holiday  system  of  her  own,  which,  while 
it  takes  the  conventional  one  into  account,  is  by  no 
means  dependent  on  it.  The  .soul  has  its  holidays,  and 
the  times  of  tliem  have  no  necessary  relation  to  August 
or  September. 

It  is  an  exhilarating  study  to  note  the  gloriously 
free  way  in  wliich   the  soul  takes    its  holidays.      It 

172 


The  Gospel  of  Happiness 

scorns  conventions  and  attires  itself  for  highest 
festivities  under  circumstances  which  set  the  calcula- 
tions of  Humdrum  at  defiance.  One  of  the  last  places 
in  the  world  to  be  regarded  as  a  holiday  resort  was 
surely  the  noisome  den  at  Bedford  in  which  Bunyan 
was  confined.  But  there  was  rarest  holiday-making 
within.  To  stand  on  the  Delectable  Mountains  was 
better  than  to  chmb  the  Jungfrau.  Greatheart, 
Christian  and  Faithful  formed  finer  society  than  the 
wits  of  the  coffee-houses.  To  have  looked  through  the 
gates  of  the  New  Jerusalem  made  cheap  the  splendours 
of  Paris  or  Rome. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  examples  of  the  way 
in  which  Nature  gives  holiday  times  to  the  soul  under 
the  strangest  outward  conditions.  Thackeray  is 
exactly  true  to  Hfe  when,  in  "  Esmond,"  he  sketches 
a  poor  merchant  trembHng  on  the  edge  of  bankruptcy 
who  has  sleepless  nights,  in  which  he  thinks  of  suicide, 
but  who,  when  the  crash  has  come  and  he  has  lost  all, 
finds  he  can  now  sleep  comfortably.  After  desperate 
strivings  to  keep  his  foothold,  he  has  finally  shpped  and 
rolled  to  the  bottom,  to  find  that  it  is  not  such  a  bad 
place  after  all.  The  experience  is  typical  and  should 
be  encouraging.  When  we  come  back  from  vacation 
time  to  resume  the  famiHar  task  awaiting  us,  it  is 
refreshing  to  think  that  in  the  midst  of  the  most 
pressing  urgencies  and  of  circumstances  the  least 
promising  to  which  it  may  introduce  us,  there  are 
reserved  for  us  there  holiday  seasons  which  the  soul 
will  register  as  the  best  of  all. 


173 


LIFE'S   MYSTERIES 


LIFE'S  MYSTERIES 

RELIGION  AND  MYSTERY 

Mystery  haunts  us  at  every  step  of  life's  journey. 
It  is  at  once  our  torment  and  our  joy.  How  much  of 
life's  fascination  comes  from  the  puzzles  that  are 
wrought  into  its  texture  ?  It  begins  with  the  children, 
who  love  and  dread  it.  How  greedily  do  they  swallow 
the  ghost  story  which  is  to  keep  them  shuddering  hours 
after  in  the  dark  !  In  the  glare  of  later  life  the  sense 
of  it  is  apt  to  become  blunted.  But  we  have  only  to 
think  ourselves  away  a  moment  from  the  provincialism 
of  our  accustomed  surroundings,  to  find  again  all  our 
wonder-faculty  alert. 

It  was  out  of  the  world's  mystery  that  the  rehgions 
grew.  Each  was  an  attempt,  in  its  own  way,  to 
explain  the  riddle  of  the  universe.  But  the  riddle 
remained  always  the  master.  And  so  the  religions, 
which  were  to  explain  the  mystery,  became  themselves 
a  mystery. 

Amongst  the  rehgions  the  relation  of  Christianity 
to  mystery  is  noteworthy.  It  takes  full  account  of 
it,  and,  indeed,  plants  itself  broadly  in  this  realm.  So 
far  from  attempting  to  explain  away  life's  riddles  it 
boldly  adds  to  them,  itself  being  the  greatest  riddle  of 
all.  The  New  Testament  is  par  excellence  the  mystery 
book.  It  baffles  us  at  every  turn.  That  it  contains 
so  much,  and  yet  so  httle  ;  that  it  raises  such  enormous 

177  M 


Selections  from  Brierley 

questions,  which  it  never  attempts  to  answer  ;   that  it 
offers  us  so  transcendent  a  central  Figure,  who  Himself 
nevertheless  writes  us  no  single  word,  and  whose  coming 
and  going  are  alike  unknown  ;    that  it  gives  us  the 
loftiest   teaching  set  in  a  framework  whose  crudity 
confounds  the  modern  mind  ;  that  it  puts  in  operation 
enormous  spiritual  forces  of  which  it  vouchsafes  no 
scientific    account ;     that    this    epoch-making    book 
itself,  of  such  priceless  value  to  humanity,  should  have 
been  exposed  to  all  the  hazards  of  literary  fortune, 
flung  on  the  world  in  scattered  pieces,  the  gathering 
and  preservation  of  which  is  left  to  a  mere  instinct — 
all  this  and  a  thousand  other  things  meet  and  confound 
us  in  our  attempted  solutions.     There  was  no  need  for 
the  Church  to  elaborate  any  "  mystery  "  of  its  own,  as 
in  later  ages  it  was  so  fond  of  doing.     The  bare  facts 
of  the  recital  offer  us,  in  this  line,  more  than  on  this 
side  the  veil  we  shall  ever  be  able  to  digest. 

The  modern  materiahst  invites  us  to  take  the  sense- 
verdict  of  a  consciousness  that  has  only  begun  to  be 
developed — a  mere  glance  upon  the  surface  of  things — 
as  the  ultimate  thing  to  be  said.  Man  will  never  be 
satisfied  with  such  an  answer.  His  rehgion  may  be 
limited  in  its  expression,  but  it  has  reached  a  deeper 
grasp  of  reahty  than  this.  Its  doctrine  of  miracle, 
of  the  supernatural,  may  be,  as  to  its  form,  somewhat 
wide  of  the  mark.  But  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  recognition 
of  the  wonder  of  the  universe,  especially  of  the  wonder 
of  its  moral  and  spiritual  hfe,  it  touches  the  centre. 
Its  hfe  of  faith  is,  when  all  is  said,  the  only  true  attitude 
in  face  of  the  mingled  hght  and  shadow  upon  the  world. 
Against  the  scoff  of  Haeckel  we  can  put  the  word  of  a 
greater  scientist  than  himself.     "  My  supreme  desire," 

178 


Life's  Mysteries 


said  Kepler,  "  is  to  find  the  God  in  myself  whom  I  find 
everywhere  outside." 

THE  TRAGIC  IN  LIFE 

When  we  compare  hfe's  quiet  days  with  its  days  of 
uprooting,  its  myriad  joys  with  its  pains,  our  year  will 
be  found,  after  all,  to  have  had  a  spring,  summer  and 
autumn  as  against  one  winter  —  and  that  winter 
also  had  its  attractions. 

But  the  question  recurs.  Why  is  there  the  winter  ? 
why  this  residuum  of  the  tragic  ?  Why  should  such 
terrors  have  been  let  loose  to  prowl  in  the  close  neigh- 
bourhood of  spirits  that  are  so  timid  ?  There  seems 
but  one  answer.  Human  nature  has  been  deliberately 
exposed  to  them  because  it  has  been  planned  and  framed 
for  the  heroic.  The  school  to  which  we  have  been  intro- 
duced, the  instructors  that  wait  on  us  there,  argue  an 
education  such  as  befits  only  the  highest  destinies. 

It  is  the  tragic  in  their  life  that  stamps  every  common 
man  and  woman,  the  unnoted  dwellers  in  mean  streets 
as  well  as  the  occupants  of  palaces,  with  the  hall- 
mark of  an  eternal  distinction.  A  discipline  so  tre- 
mendous argues  an  output  that  corresponds.  Were 
we  here  only  to  amuse  ourselves  the  arrangements 
had  been  different.  As  it  is,  the  awful  universe 
over  which  his  gaze  wanders,  the  losses  and  disappoint- 
ments that  smite  him,  the  pains  that  rack  him  and  the 
death  and  eternity  that  await  him,  all  salute  our 
pallid  mortal  and  proclaim  his  greatness.  A  being  on 
whom  such  forces  are  employed  can  never  be  ignoble, 
can  never  be  less  than  royal. 

This  is  the  Christian  view,  and  it  is  the  view  that 

179  M  2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

alone  seems  to  reach  the  level  of  the  facts.  "Our 
people  die  well,"  said  Wesley.  They  have  faced,  as 
did  Ignatius  and  many  a  one  after  him,  the  most 
hideous  tortures,  and  yet  were  happy.  That  the  tragic, 
as  all  else  in  hfe,  is  indeed  a  concealed  Beneficence, 
working  on  us  for  the  highest  ends,  comes  out  in  that 
individual  con\'iction  which,  as  Ritschl  finely  puts  it, 
"  founds  its  behef  in  Providence  not  so  much  from  the 
study  of  the  fortunes  of  others  as  from  the  study  of 
our  own."  To  Ritschl  on  this  point  echoes  R.  L. 
Stevenson  :  "  If  I  from  my  spy-hole  looking  with 
purblind  eyes  upon  the  least  part  of  a  fraction  of  the 
Universe,  yet  perceive  in  my  own  life's  destiny  some 
broken  evidence  of  a  plan,  and  some  signals  of  an 
overruling  goodness,  shall  I  then  be  so  mad  as  to 
complain  that  all  cannot  be  deciphered  ?  " 


RELIGION  AND    CATASTROPHE 

The  shock  to  our  consciousness  occasioned  by 
physical  catastrophe,  the  sense  it  creates  of  an  utter 
indifference  in  Nature,  as  though  the  shaking  down 
of  our  cities  were  to  it  as  the  disturbance  of  an  anthill, 
may  be  susceptible  of  an  interpretation  quite  the 
opposite  of  the  ordinary  one.  That  man  can  lose  so 
much  shows  how  rich  he  is.  But  that  is  not  all.  His 
revolt  against  the  physical  universe  here,  liis  sense 
of  injury  under  its  blows,  is  in  itself  the  most  significant 
feature  of  the  situation.  His  attitude  is  inexplicable 
on  the  supposition  that  he  is  a  mere  part  of  this  physical 
nature.  That  he  can  lose  so  much,  that  he  has  a  range 
of  consciousness  capable  of  being  struck  at  in  this 

1 80 


Life's  Mysteries 


tremendous  way,  is  the  opposite  of  an  argument  against 
the  vanity  of  hfe.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  man's  disasters, 
his  catastrophes,  that  give  the  cachet  to  his  rank  and 
his  destiny. 

The  common  interpretation  of  these  calamities — 
that  they  are  entirely  indiscriminate  in  their  dealing 
with  men,  striking  down  with  the  same  indifference 
innocent  and  guilty,  saint  and  sinner — is  equally  wide 
of  the  mark.  Here  again  we  see  how  the  surface  view, 
the  appeal  to  the  physical  consciousness.  Winds  us 
to  the  ultimate  fact.  The  most  striking  feature  of 
these  events  is  the  entire  and  dehcate  discrimination 
with  which  they  distribute  their  effects.  Nature,  even 
in  her  earthquake  moods,  grades  her  deahngs  with  the 
nicest  exactness.  The  one  event  may  smite  us  all, 
but  each  will  take  it  in  a  different  way.  And  our 
separate  way  will  be  in  strict  accord  with  our  entire 
inner  state  and  training.  How  different  the  same  pain 
to  the  weakhng  who  howls  under  it,  and  to  a  Posi- 
donius,  who  in  his  torture  says  to  Pompe}',  "  Pain,  do 
what  thou  wilt,  I  shall  never  be  drawn  to  say  thou 
art  an  evil !  "  Man  has  lived  with  catastrophes 
through  all  his  historj^  and  his  faith  has  survived  them. 
No  number  of  them  in  the  future  will  persuade  him 
that  the  scheme  of  things  under  which  he  finds  himself 
is  a  farrago  of  nonsense.  He  will  persist  rather  in 
believing  with  Bourget  that  "  this  obscure  universe 
has  a  mysterious  and  kindly  signification." 

Christianity  is,  in  the  best  sense,  a  religion  of  calamity. 
Goethe  called  it  the  religion  of  sorrow.  Assuredly,  as 
none  other,  it  has  sounded  the  depths  of  sorrow  and 
exhibited  to  us  their  meaning.  One  who  has  sounded 
those  deeps  as  few  have  asks,  "  Is  not  He  who  made 

i8i 


Selections  from  Brierley 

misery  wiser  than  thou  art  ?  "  Deepest  of  all  inter- 
pretations of  calamity  is  the  interpretation  of  Christ. 
In  His  Cross  we  have  a  religion  built  on  catastrophe. 
It  is  a  defiance  of  it  and  a  victory  over  it.  In  Jesus, 
who,  while  enduring  there  the  worst  that  Nature  and 
the  world  could  inflict,  breathes  the  name  of  "  Father," 
we  have  the  clearest,  Divinest  ray  of  hght  that,  from 
the  darkened  heavens,  has  ever  shot  athwart  the  deep 
mystery  of  life. 


IS  GOD  INDIFFERENT? 

There  are  times  in  history  when  a  mortal  chill  seems 
to  fall  upon  the  human  soul.  A  deadly  suspicion 
spreads  abroad  that  man  is,  after  all,  in  a  universe 
that  is  deaf  and  dumb  to  his  prayer.  The  impression 
gains  that  morality  and  spirituality,  faith,  hope, 
love — all  the  things  that  make  life  precious  and  holy 
— are  phenomena  simply  of  our  own  consciousness, 
and  tliat  there  is  no  evidence  of  there  being  anything 
corresponding  to  them  outside.  Nature  appears  to 
know  nothing  of  our  morality.  She  slays  wholesale, 
and  in  her  slaying  takes  no  heed  of  ethical  distinction. 
When  the  ship  goes  down,  or  the  earthquake  engulfs 
the  city,  the  pious  and  prayerful  ore  swept  away 
just  as  remorselessly  as  the  nuirderer  and  the  thief. 
People  living  sheltered  lives  may  dream  of  love  as  at 
the  lieart  of  things  ;  but  the  man  on  a  raft  in  the  pitiless 
Atlantic,  or  staggering,  lost  and  hopeless,  to  his  deatli 
in  the  Australian  bush,  finds  no  suggestion  of  this 
friendhncss. 

There  are  times,  we  say,  when  such  considerations 
come    upon    men    with    crushing    force.     The    earth- 

182 


Life's  Mysteries 


quake  at  Lisbon,  it  is  said,  made  multitudes  of  people 
atheists.  In  events  of  this  kind  Nature  seems  to 
outrage  our  best  instincts.  At  such  times  men  echo 
Carlyle's  outburst,  "  God  sits  in  heaven  and  does 
nothing  !  "  These  things  happen,  and  there  seems 
no  outside  response,  no  faintest  sign  that  any  moral 
sensitiveness  beyond  our  own  has  thereby  been  touched. 

Brooding  of  this  kind  is  very  rife  to-day,  and  it 
has  produced  the  singular  result  of  a  reHgious  scepticism 
that  has  moraHty  for  its  chief  support.  Man  has  become 
conscientious,  but  cannot  find  a  conscience  in  the  uni- 
verse. He  thinks  himself  better  than  his  world,  and 
is  ready  to  propose  an  evangelistic  mission  amongst 
the  unseen  powers. 

And  yet  in  all  this  the  chief  puzzle  to  us  lies  not  in 
the  world-problems  that  are  presented,  but  in  the  fact 
that  men  in  such  numbers,  and  often  of  such  con- 
spicuous ability,  should  so  misconceive  the  whole 
question.  For,  when  everything  is  said,  what  does  this 
supposed  evidence  about  the  Divine  indifference 
amount  to  ?  Looked  at  narrowly  it  resolves  itself 
into  a  series  of  surface  appearances  of  really  no  weight 
as  against  the  other  side.  The  unvarying  action  of 
the  laws  of  Nature  may  drown  a  man  here  and  there, 
or  break  him  in  pieces  at  the  bottom  of  a  cliff,  but  what 
kind  of  a  world  should  we  have  if  this  uniformity 
ceased,  and  gravitation  pulled  up  or  down  at  any 
man's  whim  or  need  ?  Our  navigation,  our  building, 
our  engineering,  the  whole  of  our  mechanical  arts, 
the  whole  progress  of  the  sciences  ;  more  than  that, 
the  whole  education  of  the  mind,  its  forethought,  its 
calculation,  its  coolness,  its  courage,  depend  upon  the 
faith   we  have  in   Nature's  guarantee  that  she  will 

183 


Selections  from  Brierley 

keep  to  her  course,  and  not  deviate  at  random  from 
her  estabhshed  hne  of  things. 

But  what  of  those  who  get  the  rough  side  of  this 
uniformity,  whom  it  buffets  or  crushes  ?  Why  is 
Nature  in  places  so  horribly  fierce,  so  utterly  cruel  ? 
As  a  rule  the  men  who  know  most  of  that  fierceness, 
the  mariners  buffeted  in  Bay  of  Biscay  gales,  the  ex- 
plorers of  Antarctic  wastes,  are  just  the  people  who  do 
not  complain.  Roughness  is  one  thing  to  a  nincom- 
poop, another  thing  to  a  man. 

But  to  the  modern  conscience  perhaps  the  greatest 
stumbling-block  of  all  lies  in  what  seems  the  Divine 
indifference  to  man's  moral  and  religious  aspirations. 
Earnest  men  watch  with  dismay  the  immoralities 
around  them,  the  orgies  of  lust  and  crime,  the  prosperity 
of  villains,  the  grinding  of  the  poor,  and  in  their  struggle 
against  it  they  seem  to  get  no  help.  Here  again  we  are 
out  of  our  reckoning  simply  because  our  observations 
are  faulty.  There  is  nothing  wrong  with  the  heavens  ; 
it  is  our  sextant  and  compass  that  need  adjustment. 
If  we  will  only  look  deep  enough  we  may  see  that 
God,  conceived  as  moral  and  spiritual,  is  acting  pre- 
cisely in  the  wa}-  we  should  expect.  So  far  from  being 
indifferent,  He  offers  an  ever-growing  revelation  of 
His  moral  care.  His  universe  is  not  silent  on  this  point. 
The  mistake  men  make  is  in  looking  for  speech  in  the 
wrong  direction. 

The  Divine  indifference  is  apparent  and  not  real. 
The  universe,  despite  surface  appearances  to  the  con- 
trary, discloses  a  Divine  moral  order  and  a  Divine 
moral  passion,  the  revelation  of  which  is  in  the  human 
consciousness.  God  can  only  make  Himself  known 
morally  in  the  sphere  of  the  soul,  and  there  He  does 

184 


Life's  Mysteries 


make  Himself  known.  Any  man  to-day,  if  he  chooses, 
can  have  the  consciousness  of  God  in  his  own  spirit. 
In  view  of  this  it  is  well  for  us  "  to  bear  without  resent- 
ment the  Divine  reserve."  Those  who  penetrate  to 
the  centre  find  there  clear  sky  and  angels'  food.  To 
him  that  overcometh  is  given  to  eat  of  the  hidden 
manna. 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

The  Gospel  itself  has  its  mystery.  When  we  open 
the  New  Testament  we  find  ourselves  in  a  region 
different  from  anything  that  modern  literature  offers 
us.  We  call  the  Gospels  history,  but  they  are  not 
histor}'  in  any  sense  similar  to  what  we  now  call 
history.  Of  the  far  greater  part  of  Christ's  hfe  they 
contain  nothing,  and  very  little  really  of  that  brief 
period  of  it  contained  in  His  pubHc  ministry. 

What  then  is  the  plain  man  to  do,  the  plain  man  who 
has  his  soul  to  save  ;  who  wishes  to  make  the  best 
he  can,  morally  and  spiritually,  with  the  Hfe  that  has 
been  given  him  ?  Well,  there  are  some  things  here 
to  be  taken  note  of.  To  begin  with,  this  Gospel 
mystery,  does  it  not  occur  to  us  that  it  may  have  been 
intended  to  be  a  mystery  ? 

Christ  is  left  to  us  in  the  Gospels  as  a  mystery. 
But  He  is  not  less  certainly  a  fact.  He  is  not  so 
much  in  the  New  Testament  as  behind  it,  the  power 
behind  it.  He  never  wrote  a  Hne  of  it,  but  in  every 
hne  of  it  we  feel  Him.  There  had  been  none  written 
had  He  not  been  there,  behind  the  scenes.  Through 
the  luminous  haze  which  hangs  over  those  marvellous 
years,  we  see  the  outlines  of  a  Figure  that  is  human 

185 


Selections  from  Brierley 

and  yet  more  than  human  ;  a  spiritual  Power  that, 
working  on  men,  lifts  them  far  above  their  natural 
stature,  and  makes  them  heroes  and  martyrs.  The 
figure  shines  there  as  a  sun  which  hides  behind  its 
own  brightness  ;  a  sun  whose  central  heat  comes 
pulsing  through  generation  after  generation,  warming 
dead  races  into  life,  and,  with  all  this  prodigality  of 
power,  showing  no  sign  of  wasting  or  decay.  When 
rationalism  has  put  our  Gospels  through  the  mill, 
and  by  its  pressure  wrung  out  of  them  the  last  ounce 
of  the  improbable  and  the  impossible,  there  still 
remains  the  mystery  that  created  them,  and  the 
mystery  of  what  they  have  wrought.  That  mystery 
is  too  much  for  any  naturalistic  interpretation.  It 
points  at  least  to  this  :  to  the  penetration  of  our  scheme 
by  a  vaster  scheme,  a  scheme  which  shows  the  realm 
of  science  to  be  the  threshold  of  a  realm  far  higher,  a 
realm  of  the  spirit,  to  which  we  belong,  and  where 
alone  our  hfe  must  seek  its  explanation.  The 
real  mystery  of  religion  is  the  mystery  of  a  Love, 
a  Redemptive  Purpose  that  has  been  working  in 
humanity  from  the  beginning,  that  has  already  shown 
itself  in  ways  passing  our  understanding,  and  that  is 
preparing  manifestations  in  the  future  beyond  our 
highest  thought. 

IN  PRAISE  OF  DARKNESS 

We  are  all  enthusiasts  of  the  light,  but  let  us  have 
also  our  praise  of  darkness.  We  are  not  sufficiently 
mindful  of  what  we  owe  to  it.  All  the  great  vital 
processes  go  on  in  the  dark.  If  you  want  your  seed 
to  sprout,  you  must  bury  it.     Dayhght  and  sunshine 

i86 


Life's  Mysteries 


will  help  to  make  your  corn,  but  for  the  real  start  of 
its  hfe  it  must  go  underground.  Nature  covers  your 
body  with  a  skin,  more  or  less  exposed  to  the  air  and 
the  general  gaze.  Here  on  the  surface  is  all  your 
bravely  of  feature — your  complexion,  your  beaut}-, 
your  plainness — for  the  world  to  look  at.  But  the 
real  business  of  keeping  you  alive  is  within,  deep  down, 
remote  from  the  view.  Those  biUions  of  cells  which 
form  your  tissues — each  one  a  separate  Hfe — do  their 
work  unseen.  Your  heart,  your  lungs,  your  vital 
organs,  toil  all  of  them  in  the  dark.  The  real  factors 
of  you  shun  pubHcity.  Physically,  you  are  a  creature 
of  the  night. 

Your  thoughts,  too,  are  born  in  the  dark.  The 
conscious  self  which  you  know  is  the  product  of  a  self 
beneath  it,  which  you  do  not  know.  Whence  our 
ideas  come,  how  they  are  created,  what  are  the  factors 
which  produce  them — all  this  is  as  hidden  from  us 
as  is  the  centre  of  the  sun.  Who  is  the  genius  who 
works  inside  a  genius  ?  The  genius  himself  is  the 
last  person  who  can  tell  you  that.  We  remember 
Stevenson's  talk  of  the  "  brownies "  who  did  his 
creative  business  for  him.  Call  them  brownies  or 
blackies,  or  whatever  name  you  choose  ;  the  fact 
remains  that  the  clear  image  which  is  formed  in  the 
brain  is  the  result  of  operations  carried  on  by  unseen 
agents  in  a  world  unknown. 

The  deeper  we  penetrate  into  this  theme  the  more 
significant  are  its  results.  The  spiritual  hfe,  Hke  all 
other  hfe,  requires  darkness  and  the  deep  for  its 
starting-point  !  A  man  must  dive  into  his  inmost 
recesses  in  order  that  he  may  find  himself.  The  nearer 
lights  must  be  put  out  that  tlie  far  view  may  get  its 

187 


Selections  from  Brierley 

chance.  Why  is  it  that  so  many  of  us  have  begun  by 
rejecting  a  creed  ?  It  is  not  necessary  to  say  it  is  the 
fault  of  the  creed.  The  reason,  the  main  reason  at 
least,  hes  in  ourselves.  The  creed,  as  it  stands  there, 
cannot  feed  us.  It  is  a  creation  of  the  hard,  dry  hght. 
The  men  who  made  it  had  in  their  day  their  own  inner 
process,  but  the  creed  they  offer  us,  though  a  product 
of  it,  is  not  that  process,  or  anything  like  it.  Here 
you  have  to  work  out  your  own  salvation.  You  are 
in  want  of  life,  your  own  life,  and  that  must  begin 
deeper  down.  The  doubts,  the  fears,  the  rejections, 
the  despairs,  are  nothing  else  or  less  than  the  clods 
thrown  upon  the  soul,  under  the  shadow  of  which  the 
life  miracle  is  wrought.  All  life,  from  the  lowest  to 
the  highest,  is  alike  ;  it  follows  one  law  of  birth  and 
growth.  The  soul's  night  of  an  Augustine,  of  a  Bunyan, 
your  night  and  mine,  are  akin  ;  akin  not  only  to  each 
other  but  to  the  growth  of  the  corn,  to  the  bloom  of  a 
flower. 

Night  and  darkness,  with  their  uses  and  abuses, 
are,  after  all,  of  limited  area.  The  sunlight  is  so  much 
more  than  they.  This  ebon  blackness,  so  seeming 
all-enveloping,  is  merely  a  result  of  your  position  on 
a  sloping  planet.  The  night's  dimension  is  a  trifle 
compared  with  the  light  that  is  abroad.  All  around 
you,  though  3'ou  cannot  see  it,  the  pulsing  beam  is 
raying  out  from  the  centre,  spreading  through  the 
immensity  of  the  outer  spaces.  It  is  yoit  who  are  in 
the  night,  not  the  solar  system.  It  is  not  for  lack  of 
sunshine  that  you  see  nothing.  That  is  an  affair  of 
your  present  position,  your  present  need.  And  when 
the  need  is  gone,  the  night  will  go.  Your  destiny  is  not 
the  night,  but  the  day.     Your  darkest  hour  is  only  its 

188 


Life's  Mysteries 

prelude.     We  see  already  the  boundary  of  the  night, 

for 

"  On  the  glimmering  limit  far  withdrawn 
God  makes  Himself  an  awful  rose  of  dawn." 


THE  MEANING  OF  SOLITUDE 

In  the  human  race  as  a  whole,  in  its  separate  stages 
of  Ufe,  in  the  experiences  of  elect  and  suffering  souls, 
and,  as  if  sympathising  with  all  this,  in  the  very  con- 
figuration of  our  globe  itself,  we  are  met  at  every  point 
with  the  mystery  of  sohtude  as  an  essential  part  of 
Hfe.  What  is  its  meaning  ?  Is  it  by  chance  that  it 
happens  so,  or  is  there  a  purpose  here  ?  Are  we  really 
alone  when  we  seem  so  ?     These  are  the  questions. 

And  it  is  precisely  when  we  study  the  action  of  soli- 
tude upon  the  individual  soul  that  we  obtain  there  a 
ghmpse  into  what  man's  solitude  in  the  universe  really 
means.  He  is  left  to  himself  that  he  may  grow.  It 
is  precisely  in  this  condition  that  he  does  grow.  Gregory 
of  Nazianzen  reahsed  that,  when  he  "  retired  into  him- 
self, deeming  quiet  the  only  safety  of  the  soul." 
Wordsworth  reahsed  it,  ''  retired  in  the  sanctuary  of 
his  owTi  heart,  hallowing  the  Sabbath  of  his  own 
thoughts. "  It  is  thus  indeed  that  all  his  great  thoughts, 
all  his  revelations,  have  come  to  man.  And  so  his 
very  isolation  is  evidence  that  he  is  guided.  His 
guide  keeps  out  of  sight,  remains  a  Dciis  ahsconditus, 
but  not  the  less  surely  does  He  open  up  and  indicate 
the  road. 

We  have,  then,   to  comprehend  and  to  accustom 

ourselves  to  the  Cosmic  habit.     It  is  not  enough  for  us 

"  to  bear 
Without  resentment  the  Divine  reserve." 

189 


Selections  from  Brierley 

We  have  to  understand  it  and  to  achieve  in  ourselves 
all  that  it  designs  for  us.  It  is  studies  such  as  these, 
of  the  mere  facts  of  life,  that  show  us  faith,  in  the  New 
Testament  sense  of  it,  as  the  only  rational  solution 
of  our  riddle.  Our  isolation  is  an  insulation.  We 
are  shut  off  from  visible  signs  that  there  may  develop 
in  us  the  sense  and  certitude  of  the  invisible  Reahty. 

SOCIETY  AND  SOLITUDE 

We  are  the  product  of  both  society  and  solitude, 
and  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  which  has  had  most 
to  do  with  the  making  of  us.  At  first,  and  for  a  good 
way  on  in  life,  we  are  of  the  general  lump,  and  barely 
distinguishable  from  it.  A  thousand  things  hnk  us 
to  the  mass.  There  is  already  among  us,  apart  from 
theory,  an  enormous  Communism.  We  are  talkers, 
and  even  thinkers,  by  virtue  of  a  language  which  is 
equally  the  property  of  my  neiglibour  and  myself.  It 
is  the  feeder  of  our  most  secret  hfe,  and  yet  derives 
all  its  use  and  power  from  the  fact  that  it  dwells,  on 
the  same  terms,  in  a  million  minds  beside  our  own. 

Yet,  when  all  this  is  said,  man  remains  the  great 
solitary.  He  is  so  both  collectively  and  individually. 
Humanity,  as  a  whole,  is  surely  the  most  lonely  of 
created  things.  Whether  we  look  up  or  look  down,  we 
seem  alone.  An  immeasurable  gulf  separates  us  from 
the  animal  forms  that  share  the  planet  with  us  ;  but 
this  is  nothing  to  the  void  that  opens  above.  It  is 
along  this  desert  path,  so  hard  and  terrible,  so  bewil- 
dering in  its  silence,  that  man  comes  to  the  possession 
of  himself.  For  we  have  two  solitudes.  We  are  part 
of  a  lonely  humanity,  but  we  are  also  ourselves  alone. 

190 


Life's  Mysteries 


Society  presses  us  on  every  side,  but  it  is  a  surface 
pressure,  and  beneath  there  are  unfathomed  depths. 
Language  often  conceals  our  thought,  it  never  fully 
expresses  it.  Surrounded  by  our  nearest  and  our  dearest, 
we  Hve  alone,  think  alone,  feel  alone,  and  shall  die  alone. 
This  is  the  mystery  of  man  the  solitary,  and  there 
should  surely  be  some  solution  of  it.  In  every  age 
exultant  souls  have  discovered  that  the  isolation  is 
an  insulation,  and  that  for  the  transmission  of  a  message. 
We  are  shut  off  from  everything  else  that  we  may 
hear  it.  The  message  is  the  whisper  of  a  hidden  way. 
When  a  man  understands  the  meaning  of  faith,  of 
love,  of  sacrifice,  of  prayer,  he  ceases  to  feel  lonely. 
The  upper  spaces  become  populated.  He  has  dis- 
covered his  kindred. 

It  is  assuredly  one  of  the  great  secrets  of  hving  to 
know  how  to  be  alone.  On  the  man  who  has  learned 
it  the  crowd,  once  so  imperious  and  dominating, 
has  ceased  to  impose.  Its  voices,  whether  of  threaten- 
ing or  applause,  interest  and  perhaps  amuse,  but  never 
coerce  him.  He  does  his  duty  by  his  fellow,  and 
feels  all  the  weight  of  obligation  which  binds  him  to 
society.  But  his  actions  are  no  longer  regulated  by 
this  cry  or  that.  For  the  great  moments,  for  the 
critical  decisions  he  retires  from  the  throng,  that  in 
silence  he  may  hear  the  verdict  of  his  inmost  soul.  He 
listens  with  awe  and  submission,  for  he  has  learned  to 
recognise  beneath  that  whisper  a  note  august  and  cen- 
tral, which  seems  to  him  Divine. 

THE  WORLD  INVISIBLE 

The  sense  of  the  visible  as  only  the  shadow  of  a  greater 
reaUty  behind  comes  with  more  difficulty  to  some  races 

191 


Selections  from  Brierley 

than  to  others.  The  Western  peoples  are  not  specially 
gifted  on  this  side.  Theirs  has  been  largely  a  material 
mission.  To  root  themselves  solidly  on  the  planet, 
to  learn  its  surface  laws,  to  enrich  themselves  by  the 
clever  manipulation  of  its  forces,  this  has  been  the 
Western  function.  The  East  gained  an  earher  sense 
of  what  lay  beneath.  The  world's  great  religions  are 
Oriental.  Egypt  lived  thousands  of  years  before 
Christ  in  the  acutest  perception  of  an  invisible  world. 
In'its  Vedanta  philosophy  India  also,  in  a  far  antiquity, 
beheld  the  world  as  phenomenal,  resting  on  a  Divine 
which  alone  was  real,  declaring  man's  hold  on  immor- 
tality to  be  in  the  surrender  of  what  in  him  was  earthly 
and  transitory.  But  no  race  of-  men,  whether  in 
East  or  West,  is  permitted  to  escape  this  discipHne. 
Sooner  or  later,  after  our  first  intoxicating  experience 
of  the  visible,  does  it  dawn  upon  us  that  all  this  is 
only  a  screen.  The  very  senses  that  linked  us  at  first 
so  firmly  to  earth  turn  traitor  to  it  later,  and  cry 
"  illusion  !  "  The  world  is  in  this  respect  a  Church, 
whose  teaching  and  ritual  none  may  evade.  As 
friend  after  friend  departs,  and  our  own  years  tell 
their  story,  hfe  becomes  more  and  more  a  vast  expecta- 
tion, a  wait  till  the  curtain  shall  be  raised.  That 
humanity,  spite  of  itself,  is  drilled  always  into  this 
attitude  is,  for  those  who  see  any  purpose  or 
coherence  in  life,  a  sufficient  hint  of  what  is  yet  to 
come. 

Evolution,  for  instance,  gives  us  life  as  a  perpetual 
ascent.  Eacfi  grade  of  being  takes  in  all  that  is  beneath 
it,  with  something  of  its  own  added.  Man,  as  we 
know  him,  sums  up  in  himself  the  laws  and  forces  of 
inorganic  matter,  the  vital  principles  of  vegetable  and 

192 


Life's  Mysteries 


animal  life,  together  with  a  whole  higher  world  of  his 
own.  And  when  to  all  this  we  add  the  consideration 
opened  by  the  later  evolutionary  researches,  showing 
as  they  do  that  the  lower  organisms  are  practically 
immortal ;  that  death  has  come  in  as  part  of  the  struggle 
towards  a  higher  structure — come  in,  that  is,  not  as 
the  lord  and  tyrant  of  life,  but  as  a  fellow-labourer 
working  towards  its  furtherance — we  realise  how  the 
evidence  accumulates  which  bids  us  look  for  higher 
fruitions,  as  well  as  for  the  solution  of  our  enigmas, 
behind  the  veil. 

Life's  silences  and  separations  are  a  purposed  disci- 
phne.  The  pains  here  are  the  spirit's  "  growing  pains." 
The  heavens  are  mute,  not  because  there  is  nothing  to 
say,  but  because  the  time  is  not  yet.  Meantime  our 
business  is  to  develop  more  and  more  that  spiritual 
sense  which  gives  us,  here  and  now,  the  vision  of  life 
in  its  wholeness,  "  Heard  you  not  that  sweet  melo- 
dious music  ?  "  said  Jacob  Behmen  to  his  son,  when 
dying  at  GorHtz.  There  is  more  than  mortal  music 
already  audible  to  attuned  ears.  The  elect  souls 
are  already  free  of  the  world  behind  the  veil.  They  are 
on  pilgrimage  towards  that  fatherland.  "  For  they 
that  say  such  things  declare  plainly  that  they  seek  a 
country.  .  .  .  But  now  they  desire  a  better  country, 
that  is,  a  heavenly." 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  PAl^SE 

Have  we  ever  considered — in  music  and  other  things 
— the  significance  of  the  pause  ?  In  an  orchestral 
performance    there    is    a    moment    when    the    sound 

193  N 


Selections  from  Brierley 

ceases.  The  musicians  are  bending  over  their  instru- 
ments ;  the  conductor  is  beating  time  with  his  baton, 
but  no  note  emerges.  What  is  this  silence  ?  It  is 
not  an  interruption.  It  is  a  part  of  the  music.  It  is 
as  eloquent,  as  necessary,  as  any  preceding  or  following 
crash  of  harmony.  You  note  the  same  thing  in  public 
oratory.  There  was  a  preacher  of  a  generation  ago 
who  was  famous  for  his  pauses.  They  stirred  all  the 
expectancy  of  his  auditors,  who  knew  that  something 
good  was  coming.  He  had  his  imitators — often,  alas  ! 
with  disastrous  results.  They  forgot  that  the  value 
of  their  pause  lay  entirely  in  what  preceded  and  what 
was  to  come  after  it  ! 

The  pause  is  an  element  in  all  Hfe.  It  is  a  feature  of 
our  physical  being.  Our  body  conforms  to  it  in  our 
nightly  sleep.  The  heart,  in  its  constant  systole- 
diastole,  has  its  moment  of  rest.  The  world  at  large 
is  full  of  the  doctrine  of  pause.  Nature  depends  upon 
if  for  some  of  her  greatest  effects.  One  might  speak 
here  of  her  dramatic  instinct.  How  incomparable  is 
her  mise  en  sctne  of  a  thunderstorm  !  And  amid  all 
the  array  of  impressive  effects  there  the  greatest 
surely  is  the  pause  which  precedes  it. 

And  this,  which  is  true  of  the  world  at  large,  is  true 
of  ourselves.  Here  also,  in  our  personal  life,  it  is 
well  to  hold  the  doctrine  of  the  pause.  The  hours 
when  your  work  appears  at  standstill,  and  your  hope 
with  it,  are  just  those  when  something  beyond  you  is 
working  for  you.  How  much  even  of  our  mental 
operation  is  carried  on  without  us !  The  wearied 
brain,  beaten  by  its  problem,  gives  up  the  task. 
Later  on  we  face  the  puzzle,  to  find  the  thing  is  done. 
How,  we  know  not ;  something  beneath  our  conscious- 

194 


Life's  Mysteries 


ness  has  been  at  work  for  us.  We  take  the  result  with 
rejoicing,  not  knowing  what  or  whom  to  thank.  It 
is  the  same  in  the  deeper  experiences  of  the  soul. 
W.  J.  Locke,  in  one  of  his  novels,  makes  his  hero  say  : 
"  I  was  going  about  in  a  state  of  suspended  spiritual 
animation."  Those  of  us  who  have  passed  many  years 
in  the  world  are  famiHar  with  that  experience.  There 
are  times  when  the  machinery  of  our  faith  seems  to 
have  broken  down.  Its  foundations  sink  beneath  us. 
It  may  have  been  the  reading  of  destructive  criticism  ; 
or  a  mounting  sea  of  troubles  ;  or  the  failure  of  health. 
Whatever  the  cause,  paradise  seems  barred  and  bolted 
against  us.  We  are  in  the  desert,  under  a  pitiless  sky. 
We  trudge  on 

"  With  close-lipped  patience  for  our  only  friend. 
Sad  patience,  too  near  neighbour  to  despair." 

Later,  as  we  look  back  on  those  times,  we  find  in  them 
one  of  the  best  arguments  for  our  present  faith.  We 
see  in  them  the  pause  which  was  part  of  the  music. 
They  were  the  times  when  some  of  the  soul's  best  work 
was  going  on  underneath,  work  of  which  at  the  time 
we  were  ignorant.  Our  sad  journey  was  on  the  road 
to  an  assurance  better  founded,  to  a  realm  of  vaster 
horizons,  where  the  doubts  which  had  confounded  us 
had  become  the  instruments  of  a  wider  vision.  Our 
sorrow  had  wrought  in  us  new  elements  of  strength. 
It  is  thus  that  we  are  remade,  not  once,  but  many 
times  over  ;  for  the  apostoHc  saying,  "  Old  things 
are  passed  away,  behold  all  things  have  become  new," 
is  not  a  soHtary  experience,  but  one  that,  in  our  pilgrim's 
progress,  is  many  times  repeated. 

195  N  2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

PERSONAL  SURVIVALS 

The  most  obvious  of  personal  survivals  is  the  one 
contained  in  memory — the  marvellous  faculty  which 
makes  our  past  a  present,  and  permits  us  to  repeat 
our  life  to  ourselves  a  thousand  times  over.  Nothing 
perhaps  so  vividly  exhibits  our  earthly  career  as  a 
progress  from  the  natural  to  the  spiritual  as  the 
operation  of  memory.  For  in  its  processes  we  see  the 
raw  material  of  experience,  the  rough  products  of 
the  consciousness  in  its  contact  with  the  world,  sub- 
tilised, ethereahsed,  made  into  possessions  of  pure 
spirit  which  are  held  by  it  for  ever. 

Another  of  the  great  personal  survivals  is  that  which 
belongs  to  the  region  of  feeling,  and  which  is  illustrated 
specially  in  religion  and  love.  In  religion,  that  which 
counts  is  not  so  much  what  we  start  with  as  what 
survives.  A  man  of  fifty  who  has  thought  his  way 
through  the  problems  of  an  age  like  our  own  lives  in 
a  mental  region  startlingly  different  from  that  of  his 
youth.  A  whole  world  of  ideas  has  dropped  away. 
He  looks  over  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  Yet, 
if  his  life  has  been  pure  and  his  intent  honest,  his 
religious  feeling  will  have  come  out  of  the  hurly- 
burly  no  whit  damaged  and  in  its  essence  scarcely 
changed.  If  difference  there  be,  it  is  that  his  faith 
is  more  essentially  childlike.  All  the  motives  to  trust, 
to  sacrifice,  to  service  and  to  love  have  strengthened 
with  the  wider  horizon  and  the  deepened  experience. 
From  what  he  has  learned  of  fatherhood  he  under- 
stands, as  he  never  could  in  the  earUer  years,  what  it 
is  to  be  a  child. 

The  same  principle  holds  in  love.    The  test  of  it 

196 


Life's  Mysteries 


is  its  survivals.  The  earlier  period,  with  its  passional 
attraction  and  its  tumult  of  the  senses,  offers  a  judgment 
more  or  less  confused.  It  is  when,  with  husband  and 
wife,  this  phase  of  relationship  has  been  passed  through 
and  discounted,  that  one  can  discern  whether  or  no 
the  root  of  the  matter  is  in  them.  For  a  true  union  is 
another  illustration  of  the  Divinely  ordered  progress 
of  life  from  the  natural  to  the  spiritual.  And  it  is  in 
its  later  stages  that  we  discern  whether  the  flower 
has  produced  the  fruit. 

In  man's  physical  frame,  in  his  rehgious  faiths, 
in  his  social  relationships,  in  his  innermost  feeHngs 
we  discover  marks  of  lowliest  origin,  but  of  an  ever 
upward  movement.  And  the  depth  of  the  beginning 
is  in  starthng  contrast  to  the  height  of  the  consum- 
mation. The  progress  of  humanity  is  from  nothing 
to  the  infinite.  Out  of  the  material  it  fabricates  the 
spiritual.  And  the  permanence  of  this  last  is  of  all 
life's  survivals  the  greatest.  Said  his  friends  to 
Socrates  before  he  drank  the  hemlock,  "  How  shall  we 
bury  you  ?  "  "As  you  please,"  was  the  reply,  "  but 
first  be  sure  that  you  have  me."  To  the  old  Greek 
thinker  was  it  clear,  as  on  higher  evidence  it  has  become 
yet  more  clear  to  us,  that  the  inner  wealth  of  the  soul, 
the  spoil  of  its  struggle  in  this  world  of  sense,  will  be 
life's  great  survival  after  its  last  grim  fight  with  death. 

ILLUSION  AS  A  TRAINING  FORGE 

Illusion  is  the  charm  and  poetry  of  the  soul,  as  well 
as  one  of  its  most  effective  inspirations.  Children  live 
in  its  enchanted  realm,  and  if  we  are  wise,  we  who  are 
older  will  often  take  up  our  abode  there  too.  It  is  a 
trick  of  the  present  writer,  when  at  a  concert  where 

197 


Selections  from  Brierley 

the  highest  music  is  provided,  to  enhance  the  enjoy- 
ment by  the  simple  process  of  shutting  his  eyes  and 
imagining  himself  in  his  own  room,  and  this  glorious 
feast  to  be  an  impromptu  serenade  under  his  windows. 
By  getting  rid  in  this  way  of  the  claims  of  expectation, 
and  allowing  everything  to  come  as  a  surprise  one  has 
doubled  the  delight.  It  is  by  illusion  also  that  Nature 
gets  her  biggest  things  out  of  us.  Young  men  set  off 
on  hardy  adventures  of  campaign  or  of  travel  with  an 
idea  of  accompanying  pleasure  or  profit  which  in 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  will  not  be  reahsed.  But  they 
will  have  done  something  for  their  own  and  the  world's 
furtherance,  which  otherwise  would  not  have  been  done. 
A  lad's  notion  of  his  own  powers,  and  of  his  future, 
is  half  illusion.  But  what  power  he  does  exercise, 
and  what  future  he  will  secure,  are  owing  largely  to 
that  illusion.  Under  this  rainbow  arch  men  and  women 
walk  together  to  marriage  and  the  founding  of  homes. 
Nature  smiles  at  their  ideas  while  securing,  at  their 
expense,  the  harvest  of  her  own. 

Yet  is  her  smile,  while  carrying  in  it  a  trace  of  irony, 
ever  benevolent.  From  passion's  illusion,  by  which 
hearts  seem  often  so  cruelly  beguiled,  come  results 
better  than  the  dream,  though  so  different  from  it. 
The  family  life,  consisting  often  of  hard  enough  realities, 
will  leave  higher  effects  upon  character  than  the  senti- 
mental raptures  which  preceded  it.  And  its  dis- 
appointments and  sorrows  show  illusion  as  one  of  the 
great  training  forces  of  the  human  spirit.  It  is  by 
the  contrast  here  forced  on  us  between  earth's  pro- 
mises and  their  fulfilment  that  it  urges  on  the  soul,  as 
by  an  inner  necessity,  to  seek  finally  its  peace  in  those 
imperishables  which  do  not  betray. 

198 


SPIRITUAL  SIDELIGHTS 


SPIRITUAL  SIDELIGHTS 

WHAT  IS  IT  TO  BE  SPIRITUAL  ? 

St.  Paul's  ringing  word,  "  to  be  carnally  minded  is 
death,  but  to  be  spiritually  minded  is  life  and  peace," 
is  one  of  those  sentences  that,  once  uttered,  can  never 
be  forgotten.  But  what  is  it  to  be  spiritual  ?  The 
Pauhne  sentence  has,  in  the  intervening  centuries, 
produced  innumerable  interpretations.  To  get  to  the 
meaning  of  this  word  for  our  age  we  have,  moreover, 
to  work  through  and  to  set  aside  the  strange  miscon- 
ceptions that  have  gathered  round  it. 

Men  have  persuaded  themselves  that  they  were 
spiritual  on  the  strength  of  a  certain  persuasion, 
especially  when  accompanied  by  a  capacity  for  ecstatic 
feehng.  And  this  when  permitting  themselves  the 
most  extraordinary  licence  of  action.  To  be  spiritual 
has  been  interpreted  by  others  as  involving  a  refusal 
of,  and  seclusion  from,  certain  large  sides  of  human 
life.  Under  this  persuasion  the  early  anchorites 
fled  to  the  desert ;  celibacy  was  regarded  as  the  only 
way  to  perfectness  ;  the  arts  and  sciences  were  tabooed 
as  godless  secularities,  and  psalm-singing,  suppHcation, 
and  rehgious  reading  and  meditation  as  the  only 
saintly  employments. 

How  stood  Puritanism  in  its  interpretation  of  the 
spiritual  ?  Undoubtedly  there  was,  in  the  intensity 
of  its   apprehension,   a  tendency   to   separatism   and 

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Selections  from  Brierley 

exclusiveness.  Yet  not  so  much  among  its  highest 
representatives.  Milton  grasped  the  whole  world  of 
learning,  and  none  of  his  age  had  a  more  exquisite 
perception  of  the  beautiful.  The  Puritan  tendency  in 
the  seventeenth  century  was  to  see  God  only  in  one 
phase  of  things  and  only  one  side  of  life. 

What,  then,  is  it  to  be  spiritual  ?  In  brief,  spirituality 
is  two  things — a  perception  and  a  performance.  It 
is  for  one  thing  to  reahse  God  as  everywhere  in  His 
world  ;  to  accept  with  reverent  gladness  every  variety 
of  its  phenomena  and  every  phase  of  its  experience  as 
a  new  manifestation  of  Himself.  The  spiritual  man 
is  he  who  in  a  sunset  on  the  Alps,  or  in  a  sonata  of 
Beethoven,  or  a  problem  of  mathematics ;  in  the 
age-long  drama  of  history,  in  the  laughter  of  little 
children,  in  the  events  of  his  life,  in  the  questions  and 
answers  of  his  experience,  in  his  highest  aspirations, 
sees  everywhere,  now  the  hiding  and  now  the  mani- 
festation of  that  ultimate  Reality  which  his  soul's 
voice  tells  him  is  HoHness  and  Love,  and  to  be  united 
with  which  is  the  one  final  craving  and  cry  of  his 
heart. 

And  with  this  perception  comes  a  performance. 
Knowing  the  universe  as  spiritual,  its  law  as  holy, 
the  spiritual  man  seeks  as  his  dearest  aim  to  conform 
his  action  and  character  to  that  law.  The  law  is 
exceeding  broad.  All  knowledge,  all  science,  all  skill 
are  included  in  it.  A  Mozart's  perfection  in  music 
is  of  affinity  with  the  perfection  that  is  spiritual.  All 
hold  of  the  one  principle.  And  so  the  spiritual 
man  is  the  broadest  and  not  the  narrowest  of  his 
fellows.  He  seeks  the  best  in  everything,  for  the  best 
is  God. 

202 


spiritual  Sidelights 

THE  NOTE  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL 

Looking  over  the  immense  and  wonderfully  varied 
fields  of  human  activity  we  discern  in  them  all  a 
teaching,  and  the  question  now  is  as  to  the  relative 
value  of  this  teaching.  In  all  these  departments, 
however  seemingly  remote  from  one  another,  the  quaUty 
of  the  work  depends  on  the  presence  or  absence  of 
one  element.  In  painter  or  poHtician,  in  architect  or 
business  man,  in  parent,  schoolmaster  or  preacher,  the 
note  which  Nature  demands,  and  which  will  decide 
their  real  worth,  is  the  note  of  the  spiritual. 

By  the  note  of  the  spiritual  we  mean  the  recognition, 
back  of  every  form  of  living  and  working,  of  an  Unseen 
Holy,  of  a  Divine  and  Infinite  Purity,  Beauty  and  Love, 
by  which  these  several  activities  are  to  be  inspired, 
and  to  which  they  are  always  to  look  for  final  appraise- 
ment. This  view  of  things  is  one  against  which,  in 
different  quarters,  very  vigorous  revolts  have  been  made, 
but  the  issue  of  those  revolts  confirms  the  fact  that  the 
universe  will  tolerate  no  other.  As  we  become  surer 
of  God  and  more  acclimatised  in  His  truth,  hohness 
and  love,  we  can  look  upon  the  bewilderments  of 
dogmatic  utterance  from  a  very  safe  standpoint.  Not 
that  we  are  going  to  be  infallible.  We  may  make 
abundance  of  mistakes ;  only,  as  Joubert  says, 
"  there  are  some  minds  which  arrive  at  error  by  all 
truths  ;  and  others  which  arrive  at  great  truths  by 
all  errors." 

The  true  soul  will  be  wrong  often  enough  in  its 
arguments,  but  right  in  its  conclusions.  A  teacher, 
for  instance,  may  state  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement  in  a  way  which,  from  the  philosophic  or 

203 


Selections  from  Brierl 


ey 


the  forensic  standpoints,  may  be  riddled  with  objections. 
But  if  he  has  stated  it  so  that  men  have  gone  away 
with  a  new  hatred  of  sin  and  passion  for  hohness  ; 
with  a  deeper  insight  into  the  love  of  God,  and  His 
law  of  sacrifice  ;  and  with  a  fresh  great  hope  for  the 
utter  redemption  of  this  sorrowful  world  ;  we  say  that, 
whatever  the  faults  and  ragged  edges  of  his  theory, 
as  a  religious  teacher  he  has  not  gone  far  wrong.  If 
we  are  in  right  relation  with  Eternal  Love,  Truth  and 
Righteousness,  we  shall  steer  our  way  through  doctrines 
without  fear  of  shipwreck. 

Our  work  and  life  form  a  teaching  the  value  of  which 
depend  on  our  relation  to  the  spiritual  world.  Unless 
we  and  our  work  are  rooted  there,  we  and  it  are  as  a 
bubble  that  breaks  on  the  passing  wave.  In  rehgion 
we  can  teach  nothing  effectively  that  we  have  not 
first  lived.  Our  measure  as  teachers  will  be  in  the 
measure  of  our  experiences.  We  can  give  only  of 
what  we  have  received,  and  we  are  receptive  only  as 
we  practise  inner  obedience.  The  men  who  are  mighty 
in  this  field  are  those  whose  height  of  attainment 
gives  a  quality  of  its  own  to  the  words  they  use,  who 
use  speech  as  a  channel  along  which  flow  influences  that 
no  words  can  translate. 

\   THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  ^ 

Perhaps  the  loosest  and  most  badly  defined  word 
in  our  language  is  the  word  Faith.  On  the  lips,  not 
only  of  the  people  but  also  of  scholars  and  divines,  it 
has  been  made  to  connote  all  manner  of  dissimilar 
and  incongruous  elements.  But  in  its  primitive  and 
Biblical  signification  it  means  neither  more  nor  less 

204 


Spiritual  Sidelights 


than  the  spiritual  sense,  the  faculty  of  response  in 
man  to  the  spiritual  world  around  him.  It  is  the  soul's 
retina,  on  which  alone  the  light  that  streams  thence 
can  register  its  pictures.  Like  the  musical  faculty,  it 
has  been  slow  in  its  emergence.  For  long  ages  of  his 
history  man  seems  to  have  felt  no  stir  of  it  within 
him.  The  palaeolithic  times  offer  not  a  trace  of  a 
religious  sense.  Even  now  it  is  most  irregularly 
distributed.  In  multitudes  it  seems  entirely  dormant, 
if  at  all  existent ;  in  a  few  it  has  from  time  to  time 
exhibited  itself  in  commanding  and  overpowering 
potency. 

What  is  the  function  of  this  spiritual  sense,  and  how 
does  it  affirm  its  authority  ?  We  have  only  to  look 
carefully  at  its  operation  in  ourselves  to  discover  at 
once  how  absolutely  different  it  is  from  the  processes 
of  mere  reasoning.  One  might  describe  it  as  the  soul's 
thrill  at  the  approach  of  the  Divine.  The  spiritual 
sense  immediately  recognises  itself  in  other  souls  and 
rejoices  in  the  contact.  Religious  fellowships  arise 
from  the  play  of  its  law  of  affinity.  It  knows  instinc- 
tively where  its  nutriment  Ues,  and  has  processes  of 
its  own  for  extracting  and  assimilating  it. 

But  the  history  of  this  spiritual  sense,  however 
disappointing  to  our  impatience  as  the  record  of  a 
rehgious  triumph,  is  almost  perfect  as  a  piece  of  rehgious 
evidence.  We  need  scarce  any  other.  The  spiritual 
sense  as  we  now  have  it  contains  the  essence  of  these 
things  in  itself,  and  would  reproduce  them,  with  new 
elements  added  of  the  eternal  revelation. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  Church,  and  specially  of 
the  religious  teacher,  to  develop  the  spiritual  sense. 
The  real  end  of  worship  and  of  exhortation  is  not  to 

205 


Selections  from  Brierley 

root  men  in  tradition  or  to  drill  them  in  logic,  or  to 
cram  them  with  facts.  It  is  to  find  the  mystic  chord 
which  vibrates  to  the  breath  of  the  Unseen.  It  answers 
always  to  the  true  note.  Often  the  thrill  comes  apart 
from  any  words.  When  a  man  has  felt  God  his  neigh- 
bour knows  it.  That  is  where  the  true  preacher's 
power  hes.  Beyond  all  eloquence,  all  learning,  its 
secret  is  in  the  fulness  and  fineness  of  his  spiritual 
sense.  And  that  grows  in  him  by  careful  cultivation. 
He  above  all  others  needs  to  ponder  the  old  Greek 
saying  ;  "  The  gods  sell  us  all  the  goods  they  give  us." 
We  cannot,  that  is,  get  the  best  without  paying  for  it. 
Inferior  substitutes  for  the  true  power  can  be  had  at 
specified  rates,  but  for  this  there  is  no  haggling  and 
no  cheapening.  Those  who,  in  pulpits  or  elsewhere, 
desire  to  be  irrefutable  evidences  of  the  heavenly 
kingdom  must  offer  their  whole  selves  as  the  price. 

SPIRITUAL  AMALGAMS 

In  every  successive  age  the  Divine  principle  has  been 
humbhng  itself  to,  and  making  what  it  could  of,  the 
human  tenement  prepared  for  it.  And  always,  we 
may  observe,  the  movement  is  towards  the  better  body, 
towards  a  more  adequate  expression  of  itself.  When 
one  form  has  worn  itself  out,  it  is  cast  off  or  remodelled. 
The  sixteenth  century  saw  the  process  on  a  great  scale, 
but  the  Protestantism  then  created  was  far  from  a 
finahty.  The  Bibliolatry  on  which,  in  its  struggle 
with  Roman  Church  authority,  it  fell  back,  and  which 
in  the  seventeenth  century  culminated  in  the  monstrous 
doctrine  of  Quenstedt  that  every  line,  word,  and  syllable 
of  the  Scriptures  was  directly  dictated  by  the  Spirit, 

206 


spiritual  Sidelights 


the  writers  being  passive  instruments,  a  doctrine  which 
it  has  been  wittily  said,  makes  Balaam's  ass  the  fittest 
of  all  the  chosen  media  of  revelation,  was  a  bodily 
form  which  the  ever-growing  spirit  has  already  burst 
through  and  laid  aside.  Essential  Christianity,  which 
may  be  defined  as  the  revelation  of  the  true  relation 
between  man  and  God  and  man  and  man,  with  the 
power  to  create  it,  is  again  seeking  new  garments  of 
thought,  speech,  and  action.  It  is  combining  to-day 
with  poUtical  economy  and  social  science.  Are  we 
told  that  these  are  foreign  to  the  Gospel  ?  They  are 
assuredly  not  m.ore  foreign  than  the  philosophies  which 
an  Athanasius  and  an  Augustine  brought  into  the 
Church.  And  the  amalgam  they  will  produce  will, 
we  predict,  be  a  good  deal  more  Christian  than  the 
Athanasian  Creed. 

But  this  is  only  one  side  of  the  topic.  The  spiritual 
amalgams  which  take  place  in  our  own  nature  are  as 
interesting  as  those  seen  on  the  broader  scale  of  history. 
The  first  result  of  these  processes  is  that  there  are  as 
many  Christianities  as  there  are  Christians.  For  with 
each  man  the  seed  drops  into  the  special  soil  of  his 
education,  his  temperament,  capacity,  and  primitive 
instincts,  and  the  result  is  always  something  unique 
and  separate.  There  is  in  everyone  a  twofold  reaction 
— of  Christianity  upon  his  original  character,  and  of 
his  original  character  upon  Christianity. 

But  there  is  another  and  beautiful  side  of  the  topic. 
The  action  of  the  Christian  spirit  upon  a  nature  that 
honestly  receives  it  will  work  out  in  the  endeavour,  on 
its  side,  to  fink  every  function  of  the  lower  fife  with  the 
higher  and  heavenly.  The  animal  part  of  him  will, 
under  this  influence,  never  be  left  to  act  alone.     In  a 

207 


Selections  from  Brierley 

word,  a  man  keeps  to  the  height  of  his  true  self  only 
by  virtue  of  that  spiritual  amalgam  which  we  term 
the  soul's  union  with  God. 


CAN  WE  REPEAT  PENTECOST? 

There  is  nothing  more  doleful  than  attempts  at 
spiritual  repetitions.  The  soul  knows  its  hour  and 
will  not  be  coerced.  Moreover,  to  propose  to  repeat 
a  thing  is  to  deny  the  law  of  progress.  To-day  is 
greater  than  yesterday.  It  has  its  own  work  and  its 
own  revelation.  What  we  learn  from  Pentecost  is 
not  to  hark  back  to  the  old,  but  to  push  on  courageously 
to  the  new.  For  amongst  other  things  this  Jerusalem 
event  was  an  immense  break  with  the  past.  It 
inaugurated  a  revolution.  At  bottom  it  meant  the 
substitution  of  the  rehgion  of  the  spirit  for  a  religion 
of  form.  We  are  only  at  the  beginning  as  yet  of  all 
that  this  meant. 

For  to-day  we  are  carrying  this  evolution  into  a 
vaster  sphere.  Precisely  as  Pentecost  meant  a  religion 
which  transcended  Judaism,  so  the  movement  now 
going  on  means  a  religion  which  transcends  medise- 
vahsm.  The  Cliristianity  we  have  inherited  was  set  in 
a  framework  which  is  visibly  falling  to  pieces.  Our 
task  is  to  build  its  vital  elements  into  a  new  and  larger 
synthesis.  The  Jerusalem  Christians  in  their  Pente- 
cost message  were  the  supreme  heretics  of  their  time. 
All  the  same  they  were  God's  appointed  workers.  The 
Power  which  moved  them  is  the  Power  which  in  our 
time  is  carrying  Church  and  world  into  another  and 
yet  higher  phase  of  thought  and  hfe. 

The  Jerusalem  Pentecost  drove  the  early  Church 

208 


Spiritual  Sidelights 


into  a  great  propaganda.  Our  Pentecost  will  in 
like  manner  have  its  propaganda.  It  will  carry  with 
it  all  the  spiritual  elements,  the  love,  the  sympathy, 
the  human  brotherhness  which  belonged  to  that 
first  phase.  But  it  will  take  with  it  something  more. 
The  Church's  missionary  effort  is,  before  our  eyes, 
developing  an  entirely  new  element.  We  cannot 
better  describe  it,  or  complete  what  we  have  here 
had  to  say,  than  by  quoting  Professor  Seeley  on  this 
point  in  his  "  Natural  Rehgion."  "  The  children  of 
modern  civilisation  are  called  to  follow  in  the  footsteps 
of  Paul,  of  Gregory,  of  Boniface,  of  Xavier,  EHot  and 
Livingstone.  But  they  must  carry  not  merely  Chris- 
tianity in  its  narrow  clerical  sense,  but  their  whole 
mass  of  spiritual  treasures  to  those  who  want  them. 
Let  us  carry  the  true  view  of  the  universe,  the  true 
astronomy,  the  true  chemistry  and  the  true  physiology 
to  polytheists  still  wrapped  in  mythological  dreams  ; 
let  us  carry  progress  and  freewill  to  fatalist  nations 
and  to  nations  cramped  by  the  fetters  of  primitive 
custom  ;  let  us  carry  the  doctrine  of  a  rational  Hberty 
to  the  heart  of  Oriental  despotisms.  In  doing  all 
this  ...  we  shall  admit  the  outlying  world  into  the 
great  civihsed  community,  into  the  modern  city  of 
God." 

THE    CHRIST   OF   TO-DAY 

The  Christ  of  to-day  is  something  more — in  a  sense, 
we  may  say,  something  much  greater  even — than  the 
Christ  of  the  New  Testament.  There  we  behold  Him 
in  the  restrictions  of  bodily  Hfe.  But  now  we  see  Him, 
as  a  sheer  spiritual  Power,  traversing  and  transforming 
the  ages.     It  is  the  simple  fact  to  say  that  to  all  ages 

209  o 


Selections  from  Brierley 

and  conditions  Christ  has  been  the  Hfe  of  the  soul. 
In  this  view  the  Christ  of  to-day  is  an  invisible  world 
power,  whose  operations  are  in  the  interior  of  human 
hearts. 

Our  Christ  of  to-day  is  a  human  histor\',  a  personality, 
and  a  power  behind.     A  cloud  in  the  heavens,  shall  we 
say,  and  the  infinite  blue  beyond,  from  out  of  which 
the  cloud  has  drawn  itself  ?     And  the  cloud  and  the 
blue  are  one.     The  mystery  is  beyond  words,  and  yet 
this  is  finally  how  it  shapes  itself  :   The  Infinite  to  be 
the  Infinite  must  contain  the  element  of  personality. 
It  contains  more  than  force  ;    it  contains  also,  truth, 
love,  purity,  holiness.     But  these  to  have  their  true 
effect  in   the  human  sphere  must  personalise.     The 
Infinite  here  must  take  shape.     The  limitless  blue  must 
3'ield  its  cloud.     And  it  has  done  so.     When  in  the 
secret  place  of  our  soul  we  build  our  God,  we  form  Him 
not  out  of  cosmic  forces,  not  out  of  gravitation  and 
chemical   attraction,   but   out   of   hofiness   and   love. 
And,  lo  !   as  we  look,  the  form  is  as  of  the  Son  of  Man  ! 
The  Absolute  as  Absolute  is  not  enough  for  the  religious 
life.     Man  must  have  some  fixed,  visible  point,  some 
crystalhsation,  as  it  were,  of  the  All  on  which  his  love 
and  reverence  may  rest.    That  is  where  the  New  Testa- 
ment story  meets  him.  Here  he  finds  the  humanising  and 
personahsing  of  the  Infinite  Goodness.     In  the  study  of 
this  Life  he  tastes  eternity.     And  as  he  believes,  the 
power  to  be  good  flows  into  him.     Therefore  knows  he 
to-day   the   Christ,  not  only  as   human,  but  also  as 
Divine  ;  not  only  as  a  figure  in  history,  but  as  the 
eternal  Now. 

"  God  may  have  other  words  for  other  worlds. 
But  for  this  world  the  Word  of  God  is  Christ." 

210 


spiritual   Sidelights 

SPIRITUAL   GAIN    AND    LOSS 

Those  higher  manifestations,  which,  for  want  of  a 
better  term,  we  define  as  "  the  spiritual  hfe,"  are  being 
more  and  more  recognised  as  humanity's  most  precious 
asset,  its  pearl  of  great  price.  To  lose  them,  or  to  stop 
their  free  development,  is,  by  the  best  minds,  seen  to 
be  a  loss  greater  infinitely  than  the  failure  of  the  crops 
or  the  breakdown  of  the  national  credit.  To  the  degree 
in  which  a  country  is  backward  here  it  is  under  a 
disabihty  not  to  be  reckoned  in  figures.  It  is  hke  want 
of  eyesight.  We  do  not  stay  now  to  define  the  contents 
of  the  spiritual  consciousness.  St.  Paul  has  done  it 
excellently  for  us  in  his  description  of  the  "  fruits  of 
the  Spirit."  What  we  want  specially  to  dwell  on  is 
the  possibihty  of  losing  it.  That  the  loss,  in  more  or 
less  degree,  is  quite  possible,  history  abundantly  shows. 
What  history,  however,  has  made  quite  as  abundantly 
manifest  is  the  curious  blunders  men  have  made  in 
guarding  against  the  loss. 

The  wider  our  observation,  the  more  careful  shall  we 
become  in  declaring  what  is  actually  a  spiritual  loss. 
So  often  do  we  mistake  the  apparent  for  the  real, 
so  often  do  we  find  that  what  needed  to  be  corrected 
was  not  the  thing  outside  us  so  much  as  our  own  stan- 
dard of  judgment.  What  we  imagine  has  gone  has 
simply  become  latent. 

What  really  constitutes  spiritual  gain  and  loss  ? 
Anything  that  hinders  the  freest  circulation  of  the 
spiritual  forces  is  a  loss.  The  pursuit  of  research,  the 
clash  of  opinion,  where  full  Hberty  is,  can  only  end  in 
spiritual  furtherance,  for  the  laws  of  the  human  mind, 
where  they  are  free  to  act,  tend  inevitably  towards 

211  O  2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

the  truth.  To  underprop  religion  by  the  old  arti- 
ficial methods  is  like  underpropping  the  planet.  The 
spiritual  kingdom,  like  the  planet,  requires  no  under- 
propping, because  it,  too,  is  sustained  by  forces  that 
are  invisible. 

Nothing  in  the  whole  range  of  a  man's  possessions  is 
so  well  worth  safeguarding  as  his  spiritual  estate.  And 
he  is  himself  a  fair  judge  of  how  matters  are  going  there. 
As  we  advance  from  youth  to  age  a  great  many  things 
change  in  us.  There  may  be  decay  of  bodily  strength 
and  of  some  forms  of  mental  faculty.  But  it  is  a  glorious 
fact  that  in  all  that  makes  the  soul  of  a  man  the  move- 
ment may  be  one  always  of  less  to  more.  If  there  is  in 
us  a  perceptible  lessening  of  the  sense  of  justice,  of  the 
passion  for  purity,  of  human  sympathy,  of  sensitive- 
ness to  the  spiritual  world  and  all  of  beauty  and  promise 
that  it  holds,  the  fault  is  not  with  the  years  but  with 
ourselves.  After  all,  the  one  great  touchstone  of 
spiritual  loss  or  gain,  as  the  apostle  has  told  us  in 
immortal  words,  is  love. 


A  NEW  INCARNATION  OF  CHRIST 

In  Church  life  to-day  are  visible  on  all  hands  the 
signs  of  decay.  A  vast  quantity  of  our  rehgious 
apparatus  is  obsolete.  A  mass  of  the  traditional 
rehgious  statement  and  ceremonial  fails  to  touch  the 
modern  mind.  Men  in  consequence  are  writing  about 
"  the  coming  irrehgion  "  and  the  approaching  extinction 
of  Christianity.  What  is  really  taking  place  around  us 
is  a  series  of  vast  preparations  for  yet  a  new  incarna- 
tion of  the  Christ.  Marvellous  and  awe-inspiring,  to 
one  whose  eyes  are  open,  are  the  stages  of  the  august 

212 


Spiritual  Sidelights 


process.  The  very  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing 
forms  is  a  part  of  it.  Carlyle  has  put  into  unforgettable 
words  the  spirit  of  the  time  :  "  The  rehgious  principle, 
driven  out  of  most  churches,  either  lies  unseen  in  the 
hearts  of  good  men,  looking  and  longing  and  silently 
working  towards  some  new  realisation  ;  or  else  wanders 
homeless  over  the  world,  hke  the  disembodied  soul 
seeking  its  terrestrial  organism." 

That  new  organism  is  already  looming  into  sight. 
The  fresh  incarnation  is  visibly  preparing.  In  the 
twentieth  century  also  shall  the  Christ  find  His  body. 
And  it  will  be  a  higher,  nobler  structure  than  any  that 
has  preceded  it.  A  thousand  things  that  belonged  to 
earher  forms  will  be  missing  in  this.  The  old  prescrip- 
tions, the  old  narrowness,  the  suspicions  against  know- 
ledge and  reason,  the  claims  of  priesthoods,  of  bUnd 
authority,  will  be  missing  here.  This  body  will  have  a 
brain  stored  with  all  the  world  has  of  knowable,  but 
its  soul  will  be  the  soul  of  Christ.  In  this  incarnation  we 
shall  see  Christianity  in  its  essence  as  the  Spirit  of 
Heavenly  Love,  binding  human  society  together  in  a 
brotherhood  of  service,  in  a  holy,  happy  fellowship 
of  the  spirit. 

Nothing  can  prevent  that  coming.  All  history  points 
this  way.  Here  shall  be  fulfilled  the  aspiration, 
echoed  by  a  myriad  loyal  hearts,  which  our  great 
Puritan  poet  has  put  into  imperishable  words  :  "  Come 
forth  out  of  thy  royal  chambers,  O  Prince  of  all  the 
Kings  of  the  earth  !  Put  on  the  visible  robes  of  Thy 
imperial  majesty,  take  up  that  unhmited  sceptre 
which  Thy  Almighty  Father  hath  bequeathed  Thee  ; 
for  now  the  voice  of  Thy  bride  calls  Thee,  and  all 
creatures  sigh  to  be  renewed." 

213 


Selections  from  Brierley 

MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    SPRING 
CLEANING 

Our  modern  civilisation  has  produced  some  interest- 
ing results.  Amongst  other  things  it  has  made 
fashionable,  and  even  necessary,  a  new  type  of  spring 
cleaning  :  that,  namely,  of  the  body.  Thousands 
of  people,  with  apparently  nothing  better  to  do, 
habitually  over-eat  and  over-drink  themselves.  Under 
this  treatment  the  overloaded  physique  become  clogged 
to  the  breaking-down  point,  and  our  fashionable 
rushes  off  to  Vichy,  to  Carlsbad,  to  Wiesbaden,  for 
what  he  calls  his  "  cure."  His  hfe  is  spent  in  eating 
himself  into  disease,  and  then  drenching  and  dieting 
himself  out  of  it. 

Do  we  not  want  here  a  spring  cleaning  such  as 
Wiesbaden  and  its  rivals  are  unable  to  supply  ;  one, 
namely,  that  shall  sweep  out,  as  with  a  torrent's 
rush,  the  whole  theory  of  hfe  on  which  these  habits 
are  founded,  and  clear  the  way  for  one  which  makes  our 
eating  and  drinking,  instead  of  an  animalism  more  or 
less  refined,  into  an  instrument  of  health  and  of  noble 
living  ? 

Amongst  the  fashionable  circles  who  make  the  for- 
tune of  the  Continental  "  cures  "  there  is  a  curiously 
analogous  spring  cleaning  process  m  their  spiritual 
affairs.  In  Catholic  society  you  hear  of  worldhngs 
who  occasionally  "  go  into  retreat,"  in  order,  as  the 
phrase  is,  "  to  make  their  soul."  Lent  is  a  kind  of 
spiritual  Carlsbad.  Its  devotions  are  a  sort  of  medi- 
cinal waters,  wherewith  to  wash  off  from  overloaded 
consciences  accumulations  which  have  become  burden- 
some, and  to  restore  to  the  jaded  appetite  its  vanished 

214 


Spiritual  Sidelights 


freshness.     Wlien    Lent   is   over,    everybody   will   be 
gayer  than  ever.     A  mad  world,  truly,  my  masters. 

There  are  spring  cleanings  in  Nature's  great  house- 
hold, and  she  manages  them  in  her  own  way.     During 
the  closing  scenes  of  the  Russo-Turkish  war,  a  singular 
fortune  brought  the  present  writer  into  the  little  town 
of  Bourgaz,  at  the  foot  of  the  Balkans,  then  occupied 
by  Russian  troops.     The  streets  were  a  foot  deep  in 
mud.     Remarking  on  this  to  the  British  Consul,  the 
latter  said  :   "  Ah,  they  never  clean  them.     They  wait 
lor  the  snow  melting  in  the  spring.     Then  there  is  a 
flood,  which  sweeps  it  all  away."     Nature  here  took 
a  hand  in  the  spring  cleaning  by  a  method  rough 
but  efficacious.     In  the  poHtical  sphere  something  Hke 
this  happened  in  England  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  in  France  in  the  eighteenth.     In  the  present  day, 
we  are  apt  to  regard  these  old-time  methods  as  a  little 
too  drastic.     We   dislike  floods,   and   for   our   street 
cleansings  have  provided  instead  a  whole  apparatus 
of  brooms  and  watercarts.     But  does  not  our  poUtical 
region  need  a  spring  cleaning  ?     We  are  supposed  to 
be  under  democratic  Government.     What  a  pathetic 
delusion  !     Go  five  miles  out  of  any  English  town  and 
you   have   stepped   from   democracy   into   feudalism, 
from  the  twentieth  to  the  fourteenth  century.     Or  go 
from  the  country  to  the  city,  to  your  central  Govern- 
ment.    On  your  Treasury  bench  you  have  men  pledged 
to  progress.     But  behind  that  bench  you  see  permanent 
departments — where  the  actual  governing  is  done — 
stuffed  with  reactionaries,  wedded  fast  to  the  feudal 
ideas.     Some  day — there  are  signs  of  spring  already — 
there  will  be  a  snow-melting  on  the  hills,  when  it  will 
be  time  for  functionaries  of  this  order,  and  for  the  whole 

215 


Selections  from  Brierley 

system  they  represent,  to  save  themselves  from  the 
rush  of  the  torrent. 

We  are  suffering  to  day  from  a  grievous  clogging  of 
our  interior  life.  The  soul's  arteries  are  blocked  with 
material  accumulations,  and  its  pulse  throbs  feebly. 
In  some  respects  our  civilisation  resembles  that  of 
the  old  world,  to  which  Christianity,  in  its  glorious 
freshness,  came  as  a  great  spring  cleaning.  Upon  a 
faint  and  thirsty  world  that  current  of  noblest  leehng 
came  as  an  infinite  refreshment,  cool,  sparkUng,  fresh 
from  the  very  river  of  God.  That  stream  still  flows. 
What  is  needed  is  that  we  get  back  to  it.  Some  of  us 
are  badly  in  need  of  an  inner  spring  cleaning.  And 
that  not  on  the  Carlsbad  principle — as  a  mere  change 
of  dissipations — but  as  the  purifying  and  renewing  of 
our  life.  Back  from  our  vapid  pleasurings,  from  our 
mad  hunt  for  things  not  worth  the  chase,  back  to  the 
hills  where  the  fountains  rise,  where  the  view  opens  on 
infinity,  and  we  see  things  sub  specie  ceternitatis  ;  to 
the  heights  where  life  is  felt  as  holy,  where  God  is  known 
as  our  one,  our  all-sufficing  and  everlasting  possession. 

SPIRITUAL  EMANCIPATION 

There  are  multitudes  of  rehgious  people  who  are  by 
no  means  emancipated.  They  have  not  yet  learned 
the  full  art  of  hving.  The  education  for  hfe  has, 
indeed,  a  good  many  branches,  and  excellent  people, 
on  all  sides  of  us,  are  to-day  groaning  in  bondage 
because  of  non-proficiency  in  one  or  other  of  them.  In 
some  branches  we  seem  to  have  gone  back  rather  than 
forward.  Wiio  can  doubt  that  tlie  Spartan  and  Stoic 
cult  of  physical  hardihood  was,  for  instance,  a  step 

2l6 


Spiritual  Sidelights 


towards  inner  freedom  !  Was  not  that  a  splendid 
lesson  which  Marcus  Aurelius  learned  from  his  tutor  ? 
"  I  learned,  says  he,  "  endurance  of  labour,  and  to 
want  little,  and  to  work  with  my  own  hands."  Not 
all  his  imperial  legions  could  win  him  such  conquests 
as  these.  Mme.  de  GenHs  must  surely  have  planned 
her  scheme  of  education  on  this  model  when  she  taught 
Louis  Phihppe  as  a  youth  "  to  wait  on  himself,  to 
despise  all  softness,  to  sleep  regularly  on  a  hard  bed, 
to  brave  sun,  rain  and  cold,  and  to  endure  the  greatest 
fatigues."  Whether  we  be  prince  or  peasant,  Christian 
or  pagan,  these  are  teachings  with  the  marrow  of 
reality  in  them.  We  are  becoming  enslaved  to  soft- 
ness in  our  time.  The  Christian  professor  and  the 
pronounced  agnostic  are  alike  in  being  uncomfortable 
unless  their  luxuries  are  to  hand.  But  all  that  is 
treason  to  the  inner  hberty.  What  we  should  incesr 
santly  cultivate  is  a  limber  soul  that  sits  easily  to  cir- 
cumstance. We  are  bunglers  in  Hfe's  first  principles 
unless  we  can  sing  the  heart's  song  with  bread  and 
water  for  our  meal  and  a  board  for  our  couch.  So 
long  as  our  happiness  holds  of  a  given  round  of  physical 
comforts  we  may  call  ourselves  by  what  name  we 
choose,  but  we  are  slaves  and  not  free  men. 

Mental  freedom  is  only  one  of  the  ways  to  the  soul's 
emancipation.  It  is  not  here  that  the  greatest  victory 
is  gained.  That  is  a  moral  one.  We  have  not  tasted 
real  liberty  till  we  have  got  the  true  measure  of  what  the 
world  calls  success,  till  we  have  learned  to  be  satisfied 
from  within  and  not  from  without. 

Our  emancipation  is  accomphshed  when  the  soul, 
free  from  fears  because  sure  of  its  place  in  the  Divdne 
order,  accepts  each  day  as  a  new  gift  from  God,  looks 

217 


Selections  from  Brierley 

back  on  its  past  with  gratitude,  and  forward  with  the 
joy  of  perfect  trust. 

MORAL  SUPERIORITIES 

No  true  man  girds  at  rank.  He  knows  that  it 
represents  sometliing  worthy,  it  not  in  its  actual 
possessor,  yet  assuredly  in  the  force  that  created  it. 
It  is  there,  the  evidence  of  a  primal  hfe-power  that  once 
lifted  itself  amongst  men  and  made  itself  respected. 
The  Gahlean  peasant  whom  Pilate  condemned  did 
not  dispute  for  a  moment  the  higher  social  rank  of  the 
judge.  But  to-day  the  judges  and  great  ones  of  the 
earth  name  the  Gahlean's  name  with  religious  devotion, 
and  have  no  words  which  adequately  express  their 
sense  of  His  rank  in  the  world.  Throughout  history, 
in  fact,  the  moral  and  spiritual  superiorities  seem  by 
a  kind  of  law  to  have  been  wedded  with  lowliness  of 
outward  position.  Libanius  made  fun  of  the  early 
Christians  as  a  set  of  tinkers  and  cobblers  who  had 
left  their  mallets  and  awls  to  preach  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Spinoza  ground  lenses  for  a  Hvelihood. 
George  Fox  and  Jacob  Behmen  got  theirs  by  cutting 
leather.  Literature  tells  the  same  story.  From  Homer 
downwards  the  kings  of  ideas  have  been,  as  often  as 
not,  bankrupt  of  pocket. 

This  study  of  the  superiority  that  lurks  in  andbeneath 
the  life  of  the  common  man  is  the  one  thing  needful 
and  grievously  lacking  among  the  present-day  accredited 
purveyors  of  our  moral  ideas.  It  would  do  some  of  our 
armchair  theologians,  who  judge  mankind  by  their 
prim  lists  of  ecclesiastical  "  virtues  and  their  contrary 
vices,"  a  world  of  good  if  they  could  spend  some  months 
amongst,  say,  the  common  sailors  on  board  an  ocean 

218 


Spiritual  Sidelights 


tramp.     On  Sundays,  while  the  tramp's  owners  and 
the  pious  British  public  generally  are  at  church,  they 
would  find  these  men  at  some  foreign  port  loading  grain 
or   coal.     Their   language   will   not   be   ecclesiastical, 
and  when  they  get  a  day  ashore  their  procedures  are 
not  such  as  are  provided  for  in  the  Assembly's  Cate- 
chism.    This,  without  doubt,  is  very  shocking.     But 
by-and-by  it  will  dawn  upon  the  theologian,  if  he  have 
grace,  that  the  moral  and  spiritual  lack  of  these  men 
is  the  sacrifice  they  are  offering  to  the  interests  of 
the  religious  British  public  ;    that  their  Sunday  and 
week-day  labour,  their  exposure    to    the  tempests  of 
ocean,  and  to  the  thieves  and  harlots  of  the  foreign 
port,  are  the  price  at  which  this  stay-at-home  public 
gets  its  corn   and  wine,   its   comforts   and   luxuries, 
three-parts,  in  fact,  of  all  it  eats,  drinks  and  wears. 
It  dawns  upon  him  that  if  vicarious  sacrifice  is  the 
highest  height  and  deepest  heart  of  morals,  then  these 
men,  who  have  sacrificed  the  interests  of  their  bodies 
and  their  souls  for  the  rest  of  us,  are  in  their  unchurched 
paganism  actually  a  great  deal  higher  up  than  we. 
When  besides  he  has  touched  hands  with  these  men, 
and    known    their    childlike    simplicity,    their    quick 
response  to  what  is  higher  when  it  is  offered,  their 
splendid  courage,  their  noble  devotion,  he  will  be  more 
than  ever  inclined  when  he  comes  back  to  revise  his 
theology.     He  will  search  for  some  new  definitions  as 
to  who  is  high  and  who  is  low  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

IDLE    PIETY 

It  was  a  saying  of  Dean  Church,  which  all  schools 
of  us  may  well  note,  that  "  the  call  to  be  religious  is 

219 


Selections  from  Brierley 

not  stronger  than  the  call  to  see  of  what  sort  our  religion 
is."  All  the  Churches  have  bred  great  souls,  and  all 
of  them,  though  some  more  than  others,  have  seen 
interpretations  of  rehgion  that  have  been  a  hindrance 
rather  than  a  help  to  true  living.  Moreover,  we  find 
clinging  to  all  the  Churches,  in  greater  or  less  degree, 
expressions  of  religion  that  arose  out  of  an  inferior 
development,  out  of  a  more  limited  outlook  than  our 
own.  It  is  time  now  that  we  recognised  these  for 
what  they  are  worth.  They  may  have  been  designated 
as  a  species  of  "  idle  piety."  For  centuries  the 
Church's  ideal  of  piety  was  the  monastery.  Every- 
thing outside  that  was  a  compromise,  a  "  second  best." 
Now  it  will  not  do  to  pass  an  undiscriminating  judgment 
on  the  monastic  life.  There  have  been  times  when  it 
stood  for  the  best  there  was  in  our  world.  Its  note 
has  been  often  the  reverse  of  an  idle  piety.  But  the 
fine  gold  so  soon  became  dim.  Of  all  the  rehgious 
orders  it  may  be  said  that,  aiming  in  the  beginning 
at  the  highest,  they  sank  ultimately  to  the  lowest. 
Seeking  perfection  in  a  segregation  from  the  common 
humanity,  they  ended  in  losing  their  manhood. 

A  great  awakening  is  preparing  against  this  whole 
view  of  things.  The  Catholic  ceremonial  has  often 
its  match  in  the  futihty  in  Protestant  emotionalism. 
We  are  in  an  age  of  Conventions,  in  which  the  higher 
Hfe  is  sought  in  a  round  of  high  excitements,  as  though 
spiritual  power  and  the  inner  victory  are  won  by  an 
incessant  play  upon  the  feelings.  Are  we  so  sure 
that  these  are  the  right  methods  ?  Or  may  it  not  be 
that  in  surfeiting  the  feehngs  we  are  emasculating  the 
will  ?  Spiritual  power  comes  not  by  external  excite- 
ments, but  by  the  inward  discipHne  of  the  soul.    It  is 

220 


« 

\ 


spiritual  Sidelights 


by  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  spiritual  life,  to  the 
laws  written  in  letters  of  fire  upon  the  Cross  of  Christ, 
that  a  man  rises  to  the  highest  levels. 

A  deeper  study  at  once  of  the  nature  of  God,  of  the 
laws  of  the  soul,  and  of  the  needs  of  the  modern  world, 
are,  we  say,  bringing  a  vast  modification  of  our  ideas 
upon  the  whole  subject  of  the  pious  Hfe.  Under  the 
influence  of  it  our  truest  worship  will  become  more 
and  more  a  work.  Our  service  of  God  will  express 
itself  in  a  service  of  man.  Our  prayer  will  be  more 
and  more  a  quiet,  yet  hard,  leaning  upon  God,  as  we 
haste  in  His  name  to  help  our  brother. 

The  best  thought  of  our  time  is  moving  in  these 
directions.  The  Church  is  becoming  tired  of  idle 
piety.  Its  leaders  are  eager  with  their  programme  of 
social  reform. 

When  this  evolution  has  been  completed,  when  we 
have  carried  our  creed  into  our  work,  and  our  work 
into  our  creed,  our  worship  will  regain  that  accent  of 
reahty  which  it  has  lost.  At  present  soul  and  body 
are  seeking  each  other.  In  the  end  they  will  find  their 
point  of  contact,  and  Christ  will  again  come  to  His 
own. 

FAITH    AS    A   FORGE 

From  history's  earliest  dawn  man  knows  himself  as 
spiritual  and  related  to  an  eternal  moral  order.  The 
Egyptians,  millenniums  before  Christ,  had  the  clearest 
perception  of  a  future  hfe.  In  India,  Vedic  hymns 
that  are  three  thousand  five  hundred  years  old  declare  a 
belief  in  a  psychic  body  inside  the  fleshly  one,  by  which 
the  dead  rose  to  the  upper  spheres.  What  our  later 
researches  are  making  increasingly  plain  is,  that  these 

221 


Selections  from  Brierley 

long-forgotten  races,  whom  in  our  narrower  concep- 
tion we  had  thought  of  as  rehgiously  outcast  and 
uncovenanted,  had  really  a  knowledge  of  spiritual 
law  which  in  some  respects  was  more  profound  than 
our  own,  and  were  enjoying  a  very  rich  rehgious 
inheritance.  Much  of  that  higher  living  which  we 
have  regarded  as  our  specialty  had  been  for  thousands 
of  ye^Ts  reahsed  in  humanity,  the  possession,  in  its 
full  fruition,  of  the  choicer  spirits,  yet  dimly  discerned 
and  unconsciously  working  among  the  less  enlightened. 

It  will  be  upon  this  vaster  view  that  the  religion  of 
the  future  will  be  framed.  We  are  in  sight  of  a  scien- 
tific demonstration  of  its  essential  principle,  which  will 
establish  it  beyond  the  reach  of  doubt,  and  confound 
alike  the  narrow  sectarianism  that  finds  salvation  in 
some  sectional  shibboleth,  and  the  more  miserable 
nihilism  which  denies  man  a  soul  and  a  future.  It 
is  wonderful  in  this  connection  to  note  how,  in  each  age, 
the  faith  element  receives  the  ahment  appropriate  to 
itself.  To-day  experimental  science  is  the  greatest 
master  of  belief,  and  it  is  this  science  which  is  beginning 
to  furnish  us  with  evidence,  procured  in  its  own  way, 
for  the  great  religious  affirmations. 

The  finest  piece  of  artistry  in  the  world  is  the  spec- 
tacle of  faith  working  upon  a  personality  and  producing 
its  results.  These  phenomena  of  the  moral  sensi- 
bilities, of  prayer,  love,  sacrifice,  ol  mighty  hopes, 
of  sustained  enthusiasms,  all  energising  in  a  human 
interior,  are,  we  say,  the  greatest  sight  the  world  has 
to  show.  Amid  the  shaking  of  the  creeds  these  things 
remain.  The  breaking  down  of  dogmatic  limitations 
is  only  a  widening  of  faith's  prospect.  The  decay  of 
older  evidence  simply  makes  room   for  more   trust- 

222 


spiritual  Sidelights 


worthy  affirmations.  We  are  on  the  eve  of  a  mighty 
revival  of  faith.  It  will  emerge  purified  from  a  thou- 
sand gross  accretions,  estabhshed  upon  immutable 
bases,  showing  itself  as  the  synthesis  of  all  life,  as  the 
explanation  of  all  history,  as  the  motiv^e  of  all  noble 
striving.  With  its  dawn  the  great  age  of  humanity 
will  begin. 

RELIGION-PUBLIC    AND    PRIVATE 

In  the  teaching  and  example  of  Jesus  pubHc  religion 
is  almost  nothing,  private  religion  is  almost  everything. 
Throughout  the  Gospels  no  emphasis  whatever  is 
laid  on  pubhc  services  or  ceremonies.  In  that  summary 
of  our  relations  with  God  and  man  contained  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  there  is  no  mention  of  churches 
or  congregations.  It  speaks  of  prayers  to  be  offered 
in  secret,  of  alms  about  which  there  is  to  be  no  adver- 
tisement. We  hear  nothing  of  processions  or  of 
vestments,  of  organings  and  Te  Deimis,  as  means  of 
pleasing  heaven.  Christ  asks,  as  the  test  of  religion, 
"  Are  you,  men  and  women  of  the  common  life,  lowly 
in  spirit,  meek,  merciful,  pure,  peaceful,  hungering 
for  righteousness,  ready  to  suffer  for  its  sake  ;  are  you 
forgiving,  truthful,  temperate,  happy  in  childhke  trust, 
beheving  in  the  eternal  Hfe  here  and  the  eternal  Hfe 
hereafter  ?  "  To  be  this,  says  Jesus,  is  to  be  religious. 
From  beginning  to  end  it  is  an  affair  of  invisibles. 

We  are  still  in  the  toils  of  ecclesiasticism,  and  have 
not  yet  found  the  courage  to  follow  Christ.  But  the 
day  draws  nearer  when  religion  will  be  put  entirely  on 
His  basis.  His  kingdom  will  be  known  as  always 
within.  This  is  not  to  say  that  public  religion  will 
decHne,  far  less  die  out. 

223 


Selections  from  Brierley 

The  common  worship  has  indeed  an  immense 
future.  Men  will  bring  new  elements  into  it  and  will 
make  it  express  the  vaster  aspiration,  the  wider  view, 
the  heightened  joy  of  Hving,  the  fuller  reahsation  of 
the  soul's  utmost  powers  which  to-day  are  opening  to 
the  human  gaze.  The  message  proclaimed  there  will 
continue  as  of  old  to  search  men's  lives,  to  heal  wounded 
spirits,  to  arrest  the  young  at  the  parting  of  the  roads 
and  set  their  feet  on  the  way  everlasting.  Hence- 
forth, we  shall  make  no  mistakes  as  to  where  the 
emphasis  of  Christ's  religion  lies.  It  is  not  in  congre- 
gations, nor  in  the  figures  of  a  church  census.  If  I 
see  my  neighbour  this  Sunday  morning  in  the  next 
pew,  well.  If  instead  he  is  worshipping  God  on  the 
hill-side  1  have  no  word  from  Christ  to  throw  at  him. 
You  and  I  are  Christians  according  to  the  precise 
height  in  us  of  love  and  faith,  of  purity,  generosity, 
and  helpfulness.  Indeed,  when  the  best  of  human 
living  has  been  reached  it  will  be  in  a  city  without 
a  church.  The  Bible  depicts  that  condition  in  one  of 
its  sublimest  and  final  words  :  "  And  I  saw  no  temple 
therein  :  for  the  Lord  God  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are 
the  temple  of  it." 

SPIRITUAL   UNDERCURRENTS 

The  significance  of  the  history  of  Jesus  for  us  is, 
partly  at  least,  the  revelation  it  offers  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  humanity  when  in  fullest  union  with  its 
spiritual  environment.  Verily,  here  is  He  the  first- 
born of  a  new  creation,  the  forerunner  in  a  new  and 
higher  stage  of  development.  That  perfect  hfe,  with 
its  Divine  self-consciousness,  its  utter  purity,  its  love, 

224 


Spiritual  Sidelights 


its  Calvary-consummated  sacrifice,  opened,  as  it  were, 
the  sluices  through  which  the  pent-up  spiritual  cur- 
rents, hitherto  hidden,  could  roll  in  upon  a  thirsty 
humanity,  bringing  Paradise  in  their  flow.  Precious 
beyond  words  is  that  draught  of  the  undercurrent, 
and  beyond  words  precious  is  He  to  whom  we  owe  it. 
Mankind,  said  Goethe,  is  continually  progressing,  but 
the  individual  man  is  ever  the  same.  The  same,  that 
is,  in  his  central  need,  a  need  which  no  progress  in 
civilisation  can  ever  supply,  but  which  is  met  and  satis- 
fied through  Christ.  As  men  understand  these  things 
more,  the  more  will  they  enter  into  that  sheer,  adoring 
love  of  Christ  which  perfumes  the  New  Testament. 
The  language  of  Christina  Rossetti  become  our  own  : 
"  How  beautiful  are  the  arms  which  have  embraced 
Christ,  the  hands  which  have  touched  Christ,  the  eyes 
which  have  gazed  upon  Christ,  the  lips  which  have 
spoken  with  Christ,  the  feet  which  have  followed  Christ  ; 
how  beautiful  are  the  hands  which  have  worked  the 
works  of  Christ,  the  feet  which,  treading  in  His  foot- 
steps, have  gone  about  doing  good,  the  Hps  that  have 
spread  abroad  His  name,  the  lives  which  have  been 
counted  loss  for  Him  !  " 

The  relation  of  Christ's  personaUty  to  the  spiritual 
undercurrents  is,  in  a  lower  degree,  that  of  all  His 
followers.  The  spiritual  currents  concentrate  in  us, 
form  in  us  reservoirs  of  power,  use  us  as  media  of  their 
mighty  movement.  It  is  precisely  to  the  extent  in 
which  we  are  in  touch  with  them  that,  as  Churches  or 
as  individuals,  we  are  of  any  rehgious  use  to  the  world. 
What  a  spectacle  that  of  a  Church  with  all  its  organism 
complete  for  work,  but  with  the  stream  that  should 
furnish  its  driving'power  cutting  for  itself  a  channel  in 

225  P 


Selections  from   Brierlcy 

a  new  direction,  and  leaving  all  this  ecclesiastical  plant 
high  and  dry  on  the  deserted  shore  !     Just  as,  in  the 
electrical  sphere,  no  teacher  of  the  science  is  possible 
who  is  ignorant  of,  or  careless  about,  the  laws  which 
operate  in  it,  so  in  this  spiritual  sphere  no  Church 
authority  will  be  recognised  which  is  not  founded  on 
knowledge  of,  and  obedience  to,  the  inner  laws.     The 
idea  of  a  Church  subsisting  on,  or  working  by,  any 
other  power  than  that  which  rises  in  the  spiritual 
world,  will  be  felt  to  be  as  absurd  as  Laputa's  project 
for  extracting  sunbeams  from  cucumbers.  The  Church's 
speech,  its  prayers,  even  its  silences,  will  be  channels 
of  the  Spirit's  mighty  undercurrent.     No  preacher  will 
venture  the  impertinence  of  utterance  which,  either  in 
substance  or  in  delivery,  is  divorced  from  the  operation 
of  the  kingdom's  law.     If  his  work  is  worth  anything 
at    all   he   will   know    that   its   worth   consists    pre- 
cisely in  this,  that  it   originates  in  a  sphere  beyond 
himself. 


LAY  RELIGION 

Will  the  eternal  religion  be  a  layman's  religion  or 
the  religion  of  the  priest  ?  The  clerical  testimony  to 
religion  is,  inevitably,  taken  with  a  certain  discount. 
The  ecclesiastic,  it  is  felt,  is  committed  to  a  certain 
position  and  cannot  help  himself.  Amongst  the  work- 
ing classes  this  view  of  things  is  especially  widespread, 
and  accounts  largely  for  their  present  coolness  towards 
Christianity  and  the  Churches.  There  is  no  doubt  as 
to  the  fact,  but  many  of  us,  both  inside  and  outside  the 
Church,  have  not  yet  taken  the  trouble  to  understand 
what  the  fact  means,  nor  the  conclusions  to  which  it 

226 


Spiritual  Sidelights 

points.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  however,  that  the 
whole  fortune  of  the  Churches  and  of  Christianity 
depends  on  the  way  in  which,  in  the  future,  the  fact  is 
comprehended  and  acted  upon. 

It  is  by  an  instinct  which  is  essentially  sound  that  the 
clergy,  as  such,  are  at  a  discount  as  a  religious  witness. 
The  reason  is  that  in  so  far  as  they,  as  a  class,  are 
separated  from  the  laity,  they  are  in  a  false  position. 
Their  position  is  false  at  once  historically  and  by  the 
nature  of  things.  For  primitive  Christianity  was 
essentially  a  layman's  religion.  Jesus  had  no  connec- 
tion with  the  clerical  order,  nor  had  His  followers. 
Not  one  of  His  first  disciples  was  in  any  sense  a 
"  reverend  gentleman."  The  teaching  of  Jesus  is  a 
rehgion  of  the  common  Hfe. 

But  the  primitive  Christianity  did  not  last.  The 
new  was  conquered  by  the  old.  The  two  forces  in 
their  contact  each  gave  something  to  the  other.  What 
Christianity  gave  was  vital  and  could  never  be  destroyed. 
But  in  taking  it  the  systems  of  the  immemorial  past 
exacted  their  rights,  and  the  toll  was  a  heavy  one. 
As  a  result  of  the  compromise  we  have  in  the  following 
centuries  a  Christianity  which  is  an  amalgam  of  the 
teaching  and  life  of  Jesus  with  the  priestism  and  cleri- 
cahsm  with  which  Judaism  and  heathendom  had 
combined  to  endow  it.  Christianity  had  ceased  hence- 
forth to  be  a  layman's  religion. 

The  Reformation  was,  for  one  thing,  an  endea- 
vour to  make  Christianity  again  a  layman's  religion. 
The  vital  religious  movements  ever  since  have  been 
essentially  laymen's  movements.  Zinzendorf,  the 
founder  of  the  Moravian  community,  was  a  layman. 
John  Wesley  obtained  his  most  vivifying   spiritual 

227  p  2 


Selections   from    Brierley 

experience  from  his  contact  with  Peter  Bohler,  the 
Moravian,  also  a  layman.  And  Wesley's  first  preachers, 
witli  whom  he  woke  up  England,  were  a  band  of  laymen. 
To-day  the  vast  evangelising  work  founded  by  William 
Booth  is  conducted  by  lay  people.  D.  L.  Moody, 
the  greatest  missioner  of  our  generation,  was  a 
layman. 

Are  we,  then,  to  conclude  that  Christianity  is  better 
without  any  separated  order  ;  that  in  view  of  the  evils 
of  clericalism,  we  are  to  do  away  with  a  clergy  ?  That 
by  no  means  follows.  Abusus  non  tollit  iisum.  This 
would  not  be  primitive  Christianity,  which  certainly 
had  its  separated  ministries.  It  stands  to  commonest 
sense  that  a  religion  which  rests  on  teaching  must  have 
teachers,  and  that  teaching,  to  be  continuous  and 
effective,  must  have  its  specialists. 

But  what  primitive  Christianity  and  all  the  later 
history  do  teach  is  plain  enough.  Clericalism  as  an 
evil  can  only  be  avoided  by  putting  the  teaching  order 
on  the  primitive  basis.  It  is  to  be  ever  of  the  people, 
and  with  the  people  and  for  the  people.  The  true 
teacher  and  spiritual  leader  has  ever  his  vocation  from 
on  high.  It  begins  there  between  his  soul  and  God, 
most  august  of  commissions  and  of  consecrations.  But 
thus  commissioned  he  stands  there  amongst  his 
brethren,  of  and  with  them  always,  his  note  union, 
and  never  separatism.  Let  Christianity,  with  its 
organisation  and  its  teaching  faculty,  resume  its  place 
as  a  layman's  religion  ;  let  the  great  Layman,  its 
first  Teacher,  be  permitted  once  more  to  exhibit, 
without  veil  or  intermediary.  His  Divine  Hfe  and 
doctrine,  and  again,  as  of  old,  the  common  people 
will  hear  Him  gladly. 

228 


Spiritual  Sidelights 

LEADING  AND  FOLLOWING 

In  the  ideal  spiritual  community  each  member  will 
combine  in  himself  the  functions  of  master  and  of 
disciple.  He  will  be  a  master,  for  if  he  has  developed 
the  inner  possibihties  of  his  nature  as  God  meant  him, 
he  will  have  won  from  life  and  have  garnered  into  his 
personality  a  something  of  Infinite  made  visible  in 
his  finite,  which  all  who  behold  may  study,  and  dehght 
in,  and  learn  from.  And  for  this  something  which 
every  true  disciple  gains,  the  greatest  will  sit  at  the  feet 
of  the  humblest,  and  each  will  learn  from  every  other. 
It  is  here  we  find  humanity's  true  and  only  priesthood. 
In  that  one  tiny  sphere  which  each  true  learner  has 
made  his  own  by  possession  and  experience,  he  is  a 
priest  to  his  fellow  ;  from  it  he  communicates  to  him  of 
mysteries  whereof  God  has  made  him  special  custodian. 
Whatever  our  ecclesiastical  position  or  pretensions,  it 
is  only  as  we  stand  in  this  one  spot  of  spiritual  territory 
where  God  has  specially  met  and  dealt  with  us  that 
we  can  exercise  any  effective  priesthood. 

To  lead  is  often  the  saint's  duty,  but  his  truest  joy 
is  in  following.  It  will  be  his  attitude  for  ever.  Always 
in  his  upward  progress  will  there  be  a  sense  of  something 
yet  to  be  developed,  of  a  good  that  still  waits  to  be 
disclosed.  It  is  his  happiness  to  reaUse  that  however 
far  he  gets  there  is  always  something  above  him.  As 
Goethe  said  to  Eckermann  :  "  We  are  not  freed  by 
refusing  to  recognise  anything  higher  than  ourselves, 
but  rather  by  reverencing  something  that  is  above  us. 
For  in  reverencing  it  we  bring  to  light  the  conscious- 
ness that  we  ourselves  bear  the  possibility  of  this 
Higher  in  us."     It  was  this  Higher  made  visible  to 

229 


Selections   from    Brierley 

men  in  the  life  of  Jesus  that  gave  the  world  the  grandest 
exhibition  of  disciplcship  it  has  yet  seen.  Nothing  in 
history,  so  far,  has  been  comparable  to  that  Divine 
compulsion  of  love  which  has  glowed  generation  after 
generation  in  human  hearts,  and  which  finds  fitting 
expression  in  the  words  of  the  Church's  first  historian  : 
"  We  who  are  converted  to  Him  know  Him  not  only 
with  the  voice  and  sound  of  words,  but  with  all  the 
affections  of  the  mind  ;  so  that  we  prefer  giving  a 
testimony  to  Him  even  to  the  preservation  of  our  own 
lives." 


230 


RELIGION   AND   LIFE 


RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

It  has  been  the  misfortune  of  theology  that  age 
after  age  it  has  been  so  eagerly  engaged  in  mapping 
out  the  Umits  and  boundaries  of  the  Divine  element 
in  Jesus.  In  the  process  theology  has  injured  its 
eyesight,  Hke  observers  who  gaze  too  fixedly  on 
the  sun.  The  usefulness  of  the  sun  is  disclosed  to 
us  not  by  looking  at  it  but  by  working  in  its  Hght. 
The  original  Christianity,  that  which  lived  in  the 
bosom  of  Jesus,  which  consisted  of  His  own  direct 
experience  of  God,  hfe  and  the  world,  is  like  the  solar 
centre,  hidden  from  us.  We  know  it  only  by  the 
burning  heat  which  has  radiated  from  it.  Men  will 
easily  accept  the  Incarnation  if  only  we  will  refrain  from 
definitions  of  it.  When  Beyschlag  declares  for  the 
purely  human  consciousness  of  Jesus  ;  when  Ritschl 
finds  here  "  the  religious  value  of  God,"  God,  that  is, 
revealed  along  the  hnes  of  spirit,  will  and  love  ;  when 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  one  of  the  sanest  minds  in  the 
whole  catalogue  of  the  Fathers,  sees  "  the  human  spirit 
of  Jesus  so  perfectly  appropriating  the  Divine  as  to 
become  entirely  one  with  it " ;  we  recognise  the 
honesty  and,  in  a  certain  degree,  the  value  of  these 
appraisements. 

Not  the  less  do  they  make  us  reahse  that  the  rehgion 
of  experience  gains  little  from  these  definitions.     We 

233 


Selections  from    Brierley 

know  Christ's  nature  best  by  the  response  it  has  created 
in  others.     Our  knowledge  of  Christ  as  a  knowledge 
mediated  through  human  hearts  does  not  end  in  the 
New  Testament  records.     It  emerges  from  them  into 
the  vaster  sphere  of  the  world  and  of  the  ages.     And 
this  region  we  find  to  be  one  not  only  so  much  wider 
than  the  first  but  where  we  find  ourselves  on  so  much 
surer  ground.     It  is  not  here  a  question  of  historical 
detail,  where  it  is  so  easy  to  be  mistaken,  but  of  those 
psychological    facts,    those    contents    of    the    human 
consciousness  which  come  nearest  of  all  to  our  concep- 
tion of  reahty.     We  deal  here  not  with  the  accidents 
of  time  and  place,  but  with  the  working  of  the  inner 
laws,  with  the  impact  of  spiritual  forces  on  the  soul. 
Christianity   is   the   religion   of   a  human   life  and 
death,  with  the  sequel  of  the  invisible  action  of  a 
vast    post-mortem   power.       This    power    was    in   its 
operation    moral    and    spiritual.     But    morahty    and 
spirituaHty   are  quahties   of  persons.     They   suppose 
personahty  and  are  inconceivable  without  it.     It  is 
time  we  gave  up  being  afraid  of  this  term  in  a  cosmic 
connection,  as  though  it  were  unscientific.     The  cry 
of    "  anthropomorphism "    as   apphed    to   an   unseen 
personality  is  surely  by  this  time  out  of  date.     When 
we  are  told  that  this  is  a  mere  projection  of  ourselves 
into  the  sphere  of  causes,  we  reply  that  there  is  no 
theory  of  the  universe  possible  to  us  which  does  not 
he  open  to  the  same  criticism.     If  we  adopt  the  barest 
materiaHsm  and  speak  only  of  matter  and  force,  we  are 
still  entirely  anthropomorphic.     For  the  idea  of  force, 
as  much  as  the  idea  of  will  or  of  intehigence,  is  derived 
entirely    from    our    own    consciousness.     Wlty,    we 
repeat,  should  we  be  afraid  of  personality  in  our  con- 

234 


Religion   and    Life 

ception  of  the  world-process  ?  So  far  as  we  can  see, 
personality  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  things.  It 
is  the  one  thing  towards  which  Nature  incessantly 
strives.  It  is  the  one  interesting  thing.  As  Bradley, 
in  his  "  Appearance  and  ReaHty,"  puts  it  :  "  Outside 
of  spirit  there  is  not,  and  there  cannot  be,  any  reaHty  ; 
and  the  more  anything  is  spiritual  so  much  the  more 
is  it  veritably  real."  There  could  be  no  use  in  a  universe 
which  did  not  know  itself.  The  seas,  the  mountains, 
the  cosmic  forces,  time,  eternity,  are  significant  only 
to  an  eye  that  sees,  to  an  intelligence  that  understands. 

THE  SUPREME  HUMAN  ACHIEVEMENT 

No  combination  of  all  the  natural  forces  in  the  planet 
can  vie  for  one  moment  with  the  potentialities  of  the 
human  voHtion.  In  its  secret  chamber  we  can  force 
destinies.  The  combination  of  freedom  and  necessity 
that  goes  on  there  is  a  mystery  we  shall  probably 
never  explain.  The  nearest  approach  to  it,  perhaps, 
is  in  the  formula  of  Hegel :  "It  is  only  as  we  are  in 
ourselves  that  we  can  develop  ourselves,  yet  is  it  we 
ourselves  that  develop  ourselves."  Despite  the  dense 
sophistical  webs  that  have  been  woven  round  this 
subject  man  has  always  beheved  in  his  freedom. 
Plutarch  well  represents  this  age-long  faith  when, 
speaking  of  Homer,  he  says,  "  The  poet  never  intro- 
duces the  Deity  as  depriving  man  of  the  freedom  of 
the  will,  but  as  moving  the  will.  He  does  not  repre- 
sent the  heavenly  power  as  producing  the  resolution, 
but  the  ideas  that  lead  to  the  resolution." 

But  this  Hfe-determining  power  to  be  of  any  service 
to  us  has  to  be  trained  and  to  be  reinforced.      The 

235 


Selections   from    Brierley 

supreme  human  achievement  is  to  make  resolutions  and 
to  keep  them.  If  a  man  cannot  resolve  for  a  hfe-time, 
let  him  resolve  for  one  day.  His  will-power  for  the 
morrow  will  be  perceptibly  stronger  for  the  effort. 
The  world's  emancipation,  its  advent  to  an  earthly 
paradise,  depends  not  on  the  accumulation  of  capital, 
but  on  the  rescue  of  its  will-power  and  the  concen- 
tration of  it  on  noble  living.  Imagine  the  lift  toward 
human  felicity  if  this  magnificent  sentence  in  Ter- 
tullian  were  made  into  a  fixed  resolve  :  "  To  wish  ill, 
to  do  ill,  to  speak  ill  or  to  think  ill  of  any  one  we  are 
equally  forbidden  without  exxeption." 

Here  is  a  contribution  to  life,  the  noblest  conceivable, 
which  we  can  every  one  make.  It  may  not  be  ours  to 
add  to  the  world's  wealth  by  great  inventions  or  works 
of  genius.  We  may  be  prevented  from  doing  the  thing 
we  had  most  set  our  hearts  on.  But  in  one  direction 
lies  a  sphere  of  glorious  freedom.  It  is  that  of  helping 
the  world  to  its  new,  its  Christian  temper.  When 
as  a  daily  disciphne  we  resolutely  crush  within  us  the 
first  beginnings  of  unloving  tliought  towards  our  fellow, 
when  we  help  him  by  bathing  the  facts  of  each  day's 
hfe  in  the  radiant  atmosphere  of  our  own  faith,  when 
by  God's  grace  and  our  inner  struggle  we  have  produced 
that  noblest  and  most  dehghtful  of  products,  a  richly 
developed  inner  hfe,  we  shall  have  taken  the  best 
possible  means  of  paying  back  our  debt.  The  world's 
greatest  asset  is  the  souls  it  is  producing.  Let  us 
see  to  it  that  our  own  becomes  a  worthy  addition. 

THE  COMING  UNITY 

A  new  cosmic  conception  has  dawned  upon  the  human 
mind,  which  throws  everything.  Church  and  theology 

236 


Religion  and  Life 


included,  into  a  fresh  perspective.  We  discover  that 
there  is  a  biology  of  the  sects  as  well  as  an  ecclesiology, 
and  that  the  former  is  hkely  to  chase  the  latter  out 
of  the  field.  In  this  view  the  differences  which  have 
exasperated  theology  and  ht  its  persecuting  fires  are 
seen  to  be  nature's  effort  after  variety  and  individuahty. 
She  flatly  refused,  at  Church  or  other  bidding,  to  be 
shut  up  to  one  type  or  species  of  religious  man.  She 
went  out  of  her  way  to  produce  fresh  specimens  and 
to  secure  their  perpetuation.  We  are  beginning  now 
to  see  the  futihty  of  crossing  her  great  design.  We  no 
longer  propose  to  stay  the  ocean  with  the  mop  of 
Mrs.  Partington. 

The  rehgious  union  of  the  future — it  all  comes  to 
this — will  have  to  recognise  to  the  full  the  rights  of 
individual  hberty  and  development,  including  the 
right  of  difference.  Spiritual  association  will  be  a 
fellowship  of  faith,  love  and  service.  But  the  faith 
will  be  an  instinct  rather  than  a  definition.  Its 
inquisition  will  be  a  judgment  faculty  in  the  interior 
of  each  man's  soul,  not  an  institution  for  the  ex- 
communication of  his  brother  man.  Its  union  will 
be  for  help  and  cheer,  not  for  coercion  and  bondage. 
It  will  include  all  who  seek  truth  and  yearn  for  goodness. 
Its  forces  will  be  precisely  those  which  filled  the  first 
disciples — the  forces  of  a  great  love  and  an  immortal 
hope. 

This  union,  in  its  largeness  and  freedom,  will  not 
impoverish  theology.  It  will  enrich  it.  Precisely  as 
our  instruments  of  observation  and  of  measurement 
become  more  penetrating  and  more  accurate,  will  be 
the  range  of  the  spiritual  realm  they  discover,  and  the 
quantity  and  value  of  the  products  they  draw  from  it. 

237 


Selections  from  Brierley 

With  the  higher  hfe  of  this  society  will  come  forms  which 
best  express  it.  Its  level  will  be  the  high-water  mark 
of  humanity,  its  growth  the  highest  human  progress. 
And  the  relation  of  each  to  all  in  it  will  be  that  of  the 
noble  apostolic  word  :  "  Not  as  having  dominion  over 
your  faith,  but  as  helpers  of  your  joy." 

RELIGION  AND  THE  CHILD 

In  the  art  galleries  of  Europe  what  perhaps  oftenest 
strikes  the  eye  is  the  subject,  incessantly  repeated, 
and  by  the  world's  greatest  artists,  of  a  Mother  and  a 
Child.  Genius,  with  its  fine  intuition,  offers  us  here 
the  highest  rehgion  as  centred  in  birth.  It  is  strange 
that,  with  such  an  object-lesson  before  it,  the  world, 
and  especially  the  rehgious  world,  should  have  failed 
so  signally  in  recognising  the  spiritual  significance  of 
childhood.  Men  to-day,  concerned  for  the  prospects 
of  religion,  take  anxious  note  of  its  visible  resources. 
They  count  up  churches,  revenues,  adherents.  They 
take  note  of  prevailing  mental  tendencies,  and  also 
of  those  spiritual  reinforcements  which  their  doctrinal 
systems  admit.  WJiat  really,  when  properly  under- 
stood, will  be  found  to  bulk  greatest  in  any  such  calcu- 
'  lation,  is  the  least  thought  of.  It  is  that  of  the  birth 
into  the  world  of  children,  the  perpetual  renewal  in 
humanity  of  tlie  child-nature. 

Has  it  occurred  to  us  yet  that  the  greatest  religious 
force  in  the  world  is  not  the  pulpit,  but  the  cradle  ? 
It  was  through  the  cliild  that  altruism  first  came  into 
the  world.  It  was  in  the  care  of  their  helpless  offspring 
that  our  primitive  ancestors  got  their  first  dim  appre- 
hensions of  unselfish  regard  for  others  ;    it  was  here 

238 


Religion  and  Life 


that  motherhood  and  fatherhood,  in  the  high  senses 
which  now  attach  to  the  words,  were  born  ;  here 
were  wrought  out  the  ideas  that  made  possible  the 
rehgious  teaching  about  a  Father  in  Heaven  ;  here  also 
was  it  that  man,  as  he  nursed  his  offspring,  nursed  also 
the  first  glimmerings  of  that  conception  of  self-sacrifice 
which  was  to  form  its  culmination  in  the  Cross. 

The  child  is  the  guarantee  of  religion  in  the  world. 
The  child  thus  signified  is  not  simply  the  new-born 
infant,  but  also  that  element  of  our  grown-up  manhood 
which,  despite  all  our  years  and  experiences,  remains 
as  the  survival  of  our  childhood.     It  is  this  part  of  a 
man,  not  the  disputer  in  him,  not  the  logician,  but  the 
child,  the  wonderer,  the  mystic,  the  bit  of  him  that  from 
the  beginning  has  felt  secret  ineffable  yearnings  for 
something  his  eye  hath  not  seen  but  his  soul  hath 
wotted  of  ;    it  is  at  this  side  of  him  the  preacher  and 
religious  teacher  should  chiefly  aim.     When  Guthrie, 
as  he  lay  a-dying,  asked  the  watchers  to  "  sing  a  bairn's 
hymn,"    he    was    reveahng    the    whole    secret.     The 
child  in  us  is  our  doorway  to  the  Infinite.     It  is  so 
with  the  good,  and  just  as  much  so  with  the  bad. 
In  presence  of  his  child  the  worst  man  has  a  moral 
longing.     He  conceals  his  vices  from  him.     That  his 
boy  should  imitate  him  there  is  a  thought  he  cannot 
endure.     If  the  Church  knew  only  how  to  touch  this 
instinct  !     Had  it   eyes  it  would   see   that  its   vital 
question  hes  in  adequately  meeting  that  child  yearning 
of  each  human  soul  which,  mightier  in  it  than  logic, 
mightier  in  it  than  science,  is  the  evidence  of  the 
Paradise  Lost  which  it  seeks  to  regain.     Religion  is 
the  basis  of  child-life,  and  when  it  is  not  also  the  basis 
of  parent  Hfe  Nature  in  her  holiest  part  has  been  out- 

239 


Selections  from  Brierley 

raged.  The  best  dowry  for  a  child,  more  in  value  than 
all  the  world  can  offer,  is  the  memory  of  a  mother 
who  prays.  To  be  chosen  by  our  child  as  its  ideal  is, 
perhaps,  the  highest  honour  that  we  could  receive. 
But  even  that  is  not  enough.  We  have  failed  unless, 
in  embracing  us  as  his  ideal,  our  child  is  thereby  set 
on  the  direct  route  to  the  Highest. 

NATURE'S  PENALTIES 

What  is  now  pressing  the  conscience  of  thoughtful 
men  is  the  enormous  luxury  of  the  rich  compared  with 
the  appalhng  poverty  of  the  poor.  The  luxury  has  its 
defenders.  It  is  argued  that  a  lavisli  expenditure  puts 
money  in  circulation,  and  helps  numbers  of  people 
to  employment.  You  give  a  "  freak  dinner  "  or  a 
fancy  ball ;  you  sail  about  in  a  3,000-ton  yacht,  or 
shoot  pheasants  over  well-stocked  preserves  ;  or  you 
drop  your  money  over  the  gambhng  tables  of  Monte 
Carlo.  What  matters  ?  The  money  moves,  keeps 
numbers  of  people  going  ;  gets  into  a  healthy  variety 
of  pockets.  Our  spendthrift  is  exalted  into  a  public 
benefactor. 

It  is  time  people  were  taught  to  think  on  these  sub- 
jects. Is  the  man  who  spends  in  this  way  getting  any 
proper  return  for  himself,  in  the  development  of  his 
own  inner  nature  ;  or  in  the  characters  of  the  syco- 
phants who  surround  him,  of  the  pampered  menials 
who  minister  to  him,  in  the  gamblers  who  pocket  his 
losses  ?  Consider  what  would  be  the  difference  not 
only  to  the  man  himself  and  his  immediate  surroundings, 
but  to  the  whole  social  condition,  if  instead  of  consuming 
his  capital  on  mere  waste  he  invested  it  in  productive 

240 


Religion  and  Life 

work  ;  in  the  building  of  houses,  in  tlie  settlement 
of  people  on  the  land,  in  enterprises  whose  returns  are 
in  the  health,  well-being  and  happiness  of  his  fellows  ! 
To  selfish  expenditures,  to  reckless  animal  indulgence. 
Nature,  which  renders  so  lavishly  on  wise  investments, 
has  her  own  rejoinder.  She  closes  her  fist  more  tightly 
than  the  hardest  usurer  of  Jewry.  She  proceeds  now 
by  what  economists  call  "  the  law  of  diminishing 
returns."  The  mere  pleasure-lover  finds  his  sources 
closing  with  every  succeeding  year.  His  vices  turn 
and  rend  him.  He  finds,  as  Mary  Chohnondeley  puts 
it,  "  the  red-hot  iron  of  our  selfishness  with  which  we 
brand  others  becomes  in  time  hot  at  both  ends." 
Nature,  outraged  by  the  defiance  of  her  spiritual  law, 
instead  of  yielding  her  compound  interest,  turns  the 
scale  the  other  way  and  exacts  a  compound  interest ; 
duns  and  prisons  her  debtors  for  it  till  they  have  paid 
the  uttermost  farthing.  She  pays  now  in  penalties. 
As  Anne  of  Austria  said  to  RicheHeu,  "  God  does  not 
pay  at  the  end  of  every  week,  but  in  the  end  He  pays." 


SELF-ACCEPTANCE 

There  is,  so  far  as  we  know,  only  one  thing  that 
can  reconcile  ourselves  to  ourselves.  This  is  the 
primitive  faith  that  our  lot  is  an  ordained  lot,  given 
us  to  make  the  best  of.  Say,  if  we  will,  after  the  modern 
fashion,  that  our  life  inheritance — in  its  elements  of 
body,  mind,  and  circumstance — ^is  just  what  our 
ancestors  have  made  it ;  that  its  limitations,  its  thin- 
ness of  soil,  its  heavy  encumbrances  are  due  to  their 
mismanagement.     If  we  are  healthy-minded  we  shall 

241  Q 


Selections  from  Brierley 

see  in  all  this  simply  a  reason  for  more  careful  farming 
on  our  own  part.  If  we  can  thereby  pay  off  some  of 
the  liabihtics  and  hand  down  the  estate  to  our  suc- 
cessors in  better  condition  than  we  found  it,  that  will 
be  something. 

But  there  is  more  than  this.  The  faith  that  accepts 
our  lot,  whatever  it  be,  as  ordained,  will  also  see  in  it 
the  battle-ground  on  which  is  to  be  fought  out  the 
great  fight  for  our  own  personality,  for  our  enduring 
spiritual  self.  On  this  point  we  could  not  do  better  for 
modern  Pessimism,  be  it  scientific,  philosophic,  or 
rehgious,  than  to  recommend  to  it  the  steady  reading 
of  a  thinker  too  little  known  in  England,  the  German 
Rothe.  To  get  well  into  the  mind  his  conception 
of  the  universe,  as  having  for  its  one  end  the  develop- 
ment of  spiritual  personahty  by  the  conflict  in  all 
worlds  of  free  will  with  circumstance,  a  view  in  which 
difficulties,  sorrows,  pains  are  regarded  as  factors  in 
the  process,  and  heaven  and  the  angelic  hierarchy  as 
some  of  its  achieved  results,  is  to  sweep  as  with  a 
keen  north  wind  the  fogs  out  of  our  brain,  and  to  set 
us  cheerfully  to  work. 

It  is,  too,  a  faith  of  this  kind  which  enables  us,  not 
only  to  accept  ourselves,  but  also  the  man  who  has 
beaten  us  in  the  race.  We  learn  to  rejoice  in  his 
greater  gifts  and  success  as  enriching  that  common 
life  of  which  we  are  privileged  to  partake.  We  are 
to  accept  ourselves  as  being,  after  all,  something  which 
God  meant,  a  possibihty  or  a  bundle  of  possibiUties 
out  of  which,  with  His  help,  we  may  create  a  result 
which  will  enrich  the  sum  total  of  existence.  Into 
the  process  our  weakness  and  pain  as  well  as  our 
strength   and  joy,  our  disappointment  and  defeat  as 

242 


Religion  and  Life 


well  as   our  rapture   and  victory,  come  as    needful 
elements. 

But  the  self  which  we  thus  accept  will  never  be  a 
finahty.  It  will  be  always  a  "  becoming."  While 
planting  our  ideal  in  the  region  of  the  possible  we  shall 
continually  see  "  Amplius  "  written  across  the  attempts 
we  make  to  realise  it.  We  may  not  reach  the  goal  we 
seek,  but  it  will  at  least  have  drawn  us  a  long  way 
upward,  besides  giving  us  a  habit  of  climbing  which 
will  very  likely  serve  in  the  next  world  as  well  as  this. 

"  That  low  man  seeks  a  little  thing  to  do, 

Sees  it  and  does  it ; 
This  high  man,  with  a  great  thing  to  pursue. 

Dies  ere  he  knows  it. 
That  has  the  world  here  ;  should  he  need  the  next  ? 

Let  the  world  mind  him. 
This,  throws  himself  on  God,  and  unperplexed. 

Seeking,  shall  find  Him." 

NOT  DEBT  BUT  GRACE 

Nature  keeps  tally  and  demands  payment  for  every- 
thing she  offers  us.  But  is  that  the  final  word  on  the 
subject  ?  No.  When  we  get  to  the  matter's  deepest 
heart  we  find  the  word  there  is  not  debt  but  grace. 
Nature's  business  habits,  her  exactions,  her  demand 
always  of  a  something  for  something,  are  only  a  modus 
operandi  which  veils  a  deep  mystery  of  Good  that 
lies  behind.  The  payment  got  out  of  us  is  really  a 
gift  to  us,  and  one  of  the  most  precious.  Listen  here 
to  the  confession  of  a  modern  spirit,  one  of  our  most 
gifted  and  representative.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  has 
laid  bare  the  innermost  of  the  thing  in  this  marvellous 
utterance  of  his  own  experience  :  "  But  indeed  with 
the  passing  of  the  years,  the  decay  of  strength,  the  loss 

243  Q2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

of  all  my  old,  active  and  personal  habits,  there  grows 
more  and  more  upon  me  that  belief  in  the  kindness  of 
the  scheme  of  things,  and  the  goodness  of  our  veiled 
God,  which  is  an  excellent  and  pacifying  compensa- 
tion." Nature's  hard  bargaining  with  her  suffering 
son  had  let  him,  the  one-time  sceptic,  into  the  secret 
of  a  boundless  Love  ! 

And  must  we  not  include  death  itself,  that  ultima 
linea  rerum  of  the  ancients,  as  only  a  part  of  Hfe's 
exchange  system  ?  Science  joins  rehgion  in  ignoring 
the  old  "  ultimate  boundaries."  Seeming  destructions 
are  in  its  view  only  new  beginnings.  It  was  both 
science  and  Christianity  which  mingled  in  the  sentiment 
of  Wordsworth  when,  as  Aubrey  de  Vere  records,  he 
"  frequently  spoke  of  death  as  if  it  were  the  taking 
of  a  degree  in  the  university  of  life."  We  shall  have 
come  well  out  of  our  life  commerce  if,  as  the  account 
draws  near  its  close,  the  give  and  take,  the  gain  and 
loss,  have  left  for  final  result  the  full  assurance  of  this 
great  Christian  hope  ;  if  we  are  in  the  company  of 
those  to  whom  apply  the  noble  words  of  our  Edmund 
Waller : 

"  The  soul's  dark  cottage,  battered  and  decayed. 
Lets  in  new  light  through  chinks  that  time  has  made  ; 
Stronger  by  weakness,  wiser  men  become 
As  they  draw  near  to  their  eternal  home." 

THE  SURPRISE  FACULTY 

Men  think  a  good  deal  to-day  of  their  surprise  faculty, 
and  pay  large  sums  to  feed  it  withal.  The  Roman 
Emperor  who  offered  a  fortune  to  the  man  who  could 
procure  him  a  new  sensation  would  find  sympathisers 
to-day.     People  travel  round  the  globe  in  search  of 

244 


Religion  and  Life 


its  big  things,  the  views  that  will  startle  and  astonish. 
But  this  is,  after  all,  a  worn-out  way  of  seeking  the 
wonderful.  The  true  way  of  travel  here  is  not  the 
lateral  but  the  vertical.  The  secret  is  not  so  much  that 
of  roaming  as  of  mounting.  A  man  who  has  seen  the 
prospect  every  day  of  his  life  from  his  native  village 
would  scarce  know  it  as  seen  from  a  balloon.  If  as 
individuals  we  would  seek  the  world's  surprises  it 
must  be  by  the  inner  way.  When  we  change  a  habit, 
when  we  start  a  fresh  study,  when  we  take  on  a  new 
service,  when  we  open  a  hitherto  untouched  side  of 
our  nature  to  the  free  play  of  God's  Spirit,  we  shall 
find  ourselves  in  a  new  world.  Life,  as  Madame 
Swetchine  says,  consists  mainly  of  what  we  put  into 
it.  Natures  that  by  constant  endeavour  and  aspiration 
preserve  their  freshness,  find  an  intoxication  in  every 
fresh  dawn.     To  them,  happy  souls,  is  it  given 

"  To  see  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand. 
And  a  heaven  in  a  wild  flower  ; 
Hold  infinity  in  the  palm  of  your  hand. 
And  eternity  in  an  hour." 

They  have  learned  Emerson's  lesson,  that  every  day 
is  the  best  day  in  the  year. 

That  is  a  poor  life  which,  in  the  retrospect,  does  not 
abound  in  reverent  wonder  at  the  Divine  goodness  in 
the  whole  ordering  of  it.  It  is  a  fine  observation  of 
Ritschl  that  each  man's  belief  in  a  personal  Providence 
arises  out  of  his  own  experience  of  God's  leading. 
Stevenson  found  it  hard  to  forgive  God  for  the  sufferings 
of  others,  but  melted  at  the  thought  of  His  fatherly 
dealing  with  himself.  And  yet  what  a  sufferer  was 
he  !  It  is  the  marvellous  history  of  that  hidden  Love 
toward  us  in  the  past  that  heartens  us  for  the  future. 

245 


Selections  from  Brierley 

When  we  steer  towards  some  menacing  fate  that 
fronts  us  we  may  meet  it  without  fear.  Its  utmost 
shock  will  be  a  surprise  of  grace. 

That  is  what  will  happen  to  us  in  death.  Dying 
will  not  hurt  us.  Sir  James  Paget  said  that  he  had 
scarce  known  a  patient  who,  when  the  end  came, 
regarded  it  with  fear,  or  with  aversion.  He  believed, 
indeed,  that  it  had  its  own  pleasure,  as  has  every 
other  physical  function.  It  was  said  of  Bushnell  that, 
"  Even  his  dying  was  play  to  him."  And  why  not  ? 
We  agree  with  Erasmus  that  "  no  man  can  die  badly 
who  has  lived  well."  And  all  that  we  have  experienced 
in  this  world,  the  wonder  of  it,  its  deliverances,  its 
trainings,  its  thousand  gracious  interpositions,  lead 
us  in  our  turn  to  the  saint's  trust  of  every  age,  that 
our  passing  hence  will  be  to  encounter  the  grandest 
and  most  blessed  surprise  of  all. 

WOMAN'S  INFLUENCE  IN  RELIGION 

As  we  trace  the  feminine  influence  in  religion  through 
the  past  and  observe  its  fuller  expansion  in  our  own 
times,  we  realise  more  clearly  the  dimensions  of  the 
blunder  which  for  long  ages  sought  so  persistently  to 
repress  it.  For,  as  we  now  begin  to  perceive,  it  is 
the  woman  nature  that,  more  intimately  than  the 
man's,  expresses  the  innermost  soul  of  religion.  It  is 
dawning  upon  us  that  those  spheres  of  reason  and  of 
logic  where  man  is  strongest,  and  where  he  loved  of 
old  to  elaborate  his  theo logic  systems,  are  not,  after 
all,  the  place  where  we  shall  find  the  thing  we  are  seeking. 
Faith's  true  seat  is  elsewhere  in  the  soul.  The  state- 
ment of  a  modern  investigator  that  "  science  arises 

246 


Religion   and   Life 


from  man's  conscious,  and  religionfrom  his  subconscious 
states,"  may  perhaps  be  too  sweeping  a  generalisation, 
but  it  points  undoubtedly  in  the  right  direction.  We 
are  understanding  better  now  Pascal's  profound  remark, 
in  its  application  to  religion,  that  "  what  is  founded 
only  in  reason  is  very  badly  founded."  It  is  in  the 
region  beyond  reason,  in  the  sphere  of  intuition,  of 
feeling,  of  aspiration,  of  that  Formless  which  Goethe 
declared  to  be  the  highest  thing  in  man,  that  religion 
finds  at  once  its  perennial  spring  and  its  impregnable 
refuge.  And  it  is  precisely  because  in  these  regions 
woman's  nature  is  at  its  richest  that  we  are  beginning 
to  discover  how  primary  and  how  essential  is  the 
contribution  which  she  makes  to  it.  It  is  because  along 
that  side  of  its  nature  humanity  most  quickly  and 
most  surely  feels  the  quiver  of  the  Infinite  that  woman 
must  inevitably  in  the  future  be  recognised  as  arch- 
priestess  of  religion. 

In  proportion  as  this  element  of  the  supra-rational — 
existing  both  in  man  and  woman,  but  in  man  so 
frequently  deficient — assumes  without  cavil  its  true 
place  in  religion,  we  shall  see  going  on  in  it  a  steady 
readjustment  of  values.  The  bastard  religion  of  dogma, 
forged  in  a  place  which  has  no  proper  apparatus  for 
producing  it,  will  yield  precedence  to  the  true  religion 
of  faith,  hope  and  love.  The  Church  will  cease  to 
frame  definitions  of  everything  in  the  universe,  with 
anathemas  attached  against  all  who  fail  to  accept  them, 
and  will  instead  give  itself  to  its  proper  work  of  loving, 
praying  and  serving.  It  will  labour  with  all  its  might 
to  understand,  but  it  will  not  again  commit  the  offence 
of  offering  the  world  a  syllogistic  salvation.  It  wiU 
know  God  as  every  mother's  soul  has  always  known 

247 


Selections  from   Brierley 

Him,  and  as  logic  has  never  known  Him.  It  will 
bear  sinners  on  its  heart  as  mothers  do  their  prodigal 
sons.  And  by  this  means  will  it  arrive  at  and  abide  in 
the  true  orthodoxy,  the  proper  knowledge  of  God. 
For  it  is  because  God's  heart  has  in  its  centre  this 
mother  love  that  He  is  our  God.  It  is  because  Christ's 
life  was  the  expression  of  that  heart  that  he  is  the 
Saviour  of  the  world. 


PULPIT  SILENCES 

One  of  the  clamant  needs  of  the  Church  to-day  is 
an  adequate  theory  and  practice  of  pulpit  silences. 
Says  R.  L,  Stevenson  in  one  of  his  letters  :  "  Oh,  if  I 
knew  how  to  omit,  I  would  ask  no  other  knowledge. 
A  man  who  knew  how  to  omit  would  make  an  Iliad 
of  a  daily  paper."  The  preacher  is,  perhaps,  more 
badly  in  want  of  this  art  than  even  the  litterateur 
or  the  journalist.  The  need  has  been  recognised.  In 
all  religions,  down  to  the  cult  of  the  most  savage 
tribes,  we  find  an  external,  pubhc  utterance  carefully 
guarded  by  silences.  Behind  the  exoteric  teaching  lay 
an  inner  core  of  "  mysteries  "  to  which  only  the  initiate 
were  introduced.  Early  Christianity  proceeded  on 
lines  not  entirely  dissimilar.  Christ  spoke  to  outsiders 
in  parables,  the  inner  meaning  of  which  He  disclosed 
only  to  His  disciples.  We  find  in  the  early  centuries  a 
general  pulpit  instruction  for  the  multitude,  a  further 
Christian  indoctrination  for  tlie  catechumens,  and  a 
still  more  developed  disciplina  arcani  for  the  baptised. 

It  is  a  singular  revolution  of  method  which  has 
brought  us  to  the  pulpit  instruction  of  to-day.  At 
the  period  of  which  we  have  just  spoken  the  system  of 

248 


Religion  and  Life 


reserve  was  applied  to  what  were  considered  the  special 
doctrines  of  Christianity,  such  as  those  of  the 
Trinity,  the  Atonement,  the  Incarnation  and  the  Holy 
Spirit.  These  were  for  the  baptised  communicants. 
At  the  present  time,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  fullest 
proclamation  of  these  doctrines  from  the  pulpit  to  all 
and  sundiy  that  in  orthodox  circles  is  regarded  as  the 
pulpit's  primal  duty. 

What,  then,  in  such  teaching,  should  be  found  and 
what  omitted  ?  Note  the  example  of  Christ.  There 
are  remarkable  silences  in  His  preaching,  some  of  which 
have  been  made  the  subject  of  bitter  complaint. 
Christ's  message  was  to  the  permanent  in  man.  It 
recognised  that  while  men  everywhere  differ,  man  is 
always  the  same.  And  his  highest  ultimate  need  is, 
in  all  circumstances,  the  same  need.  It  is  precisely 
because  the  message  is  outside  of  time  developments 
that  it  becomes  a  universal  message. 

This  consideration  should  help  us  greatly  in  the 
solution  of  some  other  urgent  pulpit  problems  of  to-day. 
How  far  should  there  be  speech  and  how  far  silence 
on  matters  of  immediate  national  interest  ?  To  what 
extent  is  the  Christianity  preached  to  be  an  applied 
Christianity  ?  In  what  way  and  to  what  extent  are 
the  social,  the  economical  and  the  political  questions 
of  the  hour  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  preacher  ?  Apos- 
tolic Christianity  offers  an  answer  which  it  were  well 
if  our  own  day  would  carefully  re-study.  We  find  in 
the  primitive  Church  a  complete  absence  of  what  may 
be  called  the  ordinary  social,  economical  and  pohtical 
propaganda.  Why  was  this  ?  Tlie  reason  why  primi- 
tive Christianitji'  had  no  specific  anti-slavery,  anti- 
poverty,  anti-despotism  propaganda  lay  in  no  sense  in 

249 


Selections  from  Brierley 

the  fact  that  it  acquiesced  in  slavery,  or  poverty,  or 
despotism.     Actually  it  was  the  enemy  of  them  all, 
and  in  the  end  will  be  fatal  to  them  all.     The  primitive 
"  silence  "  on  these  matters  lay  in  the  fact  that  the 
new  thing  Christianity  had  brought  in  was  of  infinitely 
more  value  to  Hfe  than  all  these,  and  its  propagation 
accordingly    of    far    more   importance.     If    only    the 
pulpit    would   believe   it  !     When    the    preacher   has 
become  merely  political  it  is  because  he  has  lost  grip 
of  religion.     As  long  as  this  last  is  vital  in  him  he 
cannot  help  seeing  that  is  is  of  infinitely  more  political 
and  social  and  economical  value  than  any  poHtics,  or 
sociahsms,  or  economics.     To  Paul  it  was  so  much 
more  worth  while  to  make  a  slave  a  Christian  than  to 
agitate  for  his  freedom  !     There  will  always  be  enough 
and  to  spare  of  pohticians  ;    what  the  world  really 
wants  is  men  who  have  news  from  the  land  of  the 
ideal,  who  have  God's  life  within   them,  who  open 
afresh  the  springs  of  living  water  that  quench  the  thirst 
of  the  soul.     When  the  Church  is  alive  it  makes  rehgion 
the  most  interesting  thing  in  the  land,  whatever  else 
is  happening. 

That  the  Church  is  the  representative  of  the  eternal 
in  the  midst  of  time  does  not,  however,  absolve  it 
from  a  heavy  responsibility  in  relation  to  the  things  of 
time.  Its  message  will  have  these  continually  within 
its  scope,  but  ever  to  bring  them  under  its  own  light,  to 
view  them  sub  specie  cBtcrnitaiis.  The  pulpit  cannot 
be  silent  on  sins,  whether  national  or  individual,  that 
are  destroying  spiritual  hfe  ;  but  when  men  speak  on 
these  themes  they  must  have  a  call.  The  true  prophet 
knows  that  his  message  has  been  given  to  him  and  that 
it  must  be  spoken  at  all  hazards. 

250 


Religion  and  Life 

NEW  TESTAMENT  RELIGION 

The  New  Testament  religion,  as  offered  the  world, 
is  not,  nor  was  intended  to  be,  in  itself  an  absolute. 
It  is  a  relative,  avowing  in  its  very  terms  a  dependence 
for  its  results  on  the  cultures  which  had  preceded  it. 
But  to  leave  the  matter  here  would  be  to  leave  it  in 
halves  ;  we  should  have,  in  fact,  precisely  one  of  those 
half  truths  which  make  a  whole  falsehood.     To  get 
the  entire  truth  we  need  now  to  look  at  the  other  half 
of  our  echo.     We  have  seen  some  of  the  things  included 
in  the  reflecting  surface.     What  now  of  the  producing 
voice  ?     There  are  laws  on  this  side  as  well  as  on  the 
other.     When,  in  the  same  surroundings,  coming  back 
from  the  same  mountain  side  or  cliff  formation,  we 
have  at  different  times  a  different  echo,  we  know  the 
difference   here   must   be    in    the   originating   sound. 
Variation   of   tone,   of  quality,   of  intensity,   will  be 
according  to  what  is  found  in  that.     It  is  when  we 
apply  to  the  Gospel  this  other  side  of  an  echo-doctrine 
that  we  can  re-make  the  Christian  affirmations  that 
our  earlier  study  seemed  to  question.      Innumerable 
other  voices  have,   before   and  since  Christ,   thrown 
themselves  against  this  mountain  mass  of  humanity. 
The  mass  was  the  same,  but  what  of  the  response  ? 
It  is  here  that  the  consideration  comes  in  with  such 
effect  that   Harnack  has  urged  in   "  What   is   Chris- 
tianity ?  "   We  cannot,  as  he  says,  judge  a  great  persona- 
lity simply  by  himself  ;  we  cannot  measure  him  merely 
by  his  own  words,  his  own  deeds.     To  approximate 
to  his  full  size  we  must  study  the  effect  he  has  produced 
on  others.     And  where  we  cannot  hear  the  voice  itself, 
we  can  measure  it  by  its  echo.     When  we  carry  this 

251 


Selections  from  Brierley 

method  to  our  estimate  of  Christ  there  is  no  doubt 
about  the  result.  The  most  merciless  critic  of  the  New 
Testament  must  recognise  that  it  represents  what  the 
first  generation  of  believers  thought  and  felt  about 
Jesus.  This  is  the  echo  of  His  personahty  in  human 
hearts.  Read  the  account  of  early  Christian  living  and 
character  in  the  Apology  of  Aristides,  and  ask  what 
force  must  have  been  operating  to  produce  such  effects 
upon  the  dissolute  and  degraded  humanity  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  The  Divine  life  in  man  as  here 
depicted,  be  sure,  had  Divinity  for  its  origin. 


THE  APPEAL  TO  FEAR 

The  point  is  often  discussed  whether  the  com- 
parative absence  from  the  modern  pulpit  of  those 
appeals  to  fear  characteristic  of  the  earlier  evangelism 
has  not  militated  against  its  power.  Under  the  re- 
action caused  by  the  crudities  and  falsities  connected 
with  earlier  presentations  of  judgment  and  punish- 
ment there  has  been  a  disposition  to  give  the  whole 
subject  a  wide  berth.  But  this  can  never  be  a  perma- 
nent attitude.  The  preacher  of  to-day,  awake  to  the 
spiritual  revelation  that  is  going  on  around  him, 
should  have  no  difficulty  and  no  hesitancy  about  the 
place  he  assigns  to  fear  as  one  of  the  religious  working 
forces. 

For  long  centuries  the  prevailing  conception  of  the 
spiritual  powers  was  demonic.  God  was  demonic  as 
well  as  Satan.  He  was  taught  as  capable  of  inflicting 
endless  physical  tortures  on  little  children,  on  beings 
powerless  to  resist,  and  of  using  the  devil  and   his 

252 


Religion  and  Life 


angels  as  willing  henchmen  in  the  business.  The 
lesson  of  history  shows  that  appeals  to  fear  of  this  type, 
whether  under  a  pagan  or  a  Christian  name,  lead  only 
to  cynicism  and  unbelief. 

The  supreme  Gospel  offered  there  to  man  is  that 
God  is  Love.  But  if  God  is  Love  anywhere  He  is  Love 
everywhere,  as  much  in  the  place  called  hell  as  in  the 
place  called  heaven,  as  much  the  moment  after  a 
man's  death  as  the  moment  before  it. 

But  what  of  the  New  Testament  appeal  to  fear  ? 
Is  not  the  book  full  of  warnings  ;  is  not  hell  in  its 
list  of  contents  ;  and  have  not  those  preachers  and  those 
Churches  been  most  successful  who  have  most  insisted 
on  this  side  of  its  teaching  ?  If  we  answer  these  ques- 
tions in  the  affirmative,  as  we  find  ourselves  compelled 
to  do,  where  is  the  reconciliation  between  such  a  posi- 
tion and  those  others  we  have  just  been  urging  ?  The 
solution  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  Christian  appeal  to 
fear  finds  its  explanation,  not  in  the  vindictive  character 
of  God,  but  in  the  stupendous  possibilities,  up  or  down, 
of  the  human  soul.  The  insistent  warning  note  of 
the  gospel  is  that  man  is  making  or  marring  himself ; 
that  it  is  an  immense  and  wondrous  self  he  is  making  or 
marring ;  and  that  the  process  is  going  on  now. 
Heaven  and  hell  are  truly  in  this  business,  for,  as 
said  the  old  Persian  poet : 

"Behold,  myself  am  heaven  and  hell." 

Mingled  with  this  element  of  the  Christian  fear  is 
the  dread  of  offending  God.  We  cannot  bear  the  thought 
of  that  Heart  being  smitten  with  our  ingratitude,  of 
that  Face  turned  away  in  grief  from  our  shortcoming. 

253 


Selections  from  Brierley 

Jean  Ingelow  has  put  with  unsurpassable  force  this 
side  of  the  Christian  fear  : 

''  Come,  lest  this  heart  should,  cold  and  cast  away. 
Die  ere  the  Guest  adored  she  entertain  ; 
Lest  eyes  that  never  saw  Tliine  earthly  day 
Should  miss  Thy  heavenly  reign." 

Thus  fear,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  entered  as  first 
and  lowest  element  into  the  religious  concept,  comes 
out,  transmuted  by  love,  as  its  last  and  highest. 


254 


SCIENCE.  ART  AND  RELIGION 


SCIENCE,  ART  AND  RELIGION 

SCIENCE  AND  THE  CREEDS 

Our  Church,  creeds  are  Alpine  ranges,  flung  up  out 
of  the  molten  mass  of  human  thought  and  experience. 
In  this  age  of  sceptical  criticism  it  is  common  to  regard 
them  with  a  certain  discredit,  as  though  they  were 
cloud  images,  mere  mirages,  instead  of  solid  rock.  But 
that,  we  venture  to  say,  will  be  proved  to  be  not  the 
right  view.  The  difference  is  not  one  of  material,  so 
much  as  a  difference  in  our  viewpoint.  The  change 
is  not  so  much  in  them  as  in  us.  The  facts  they  repre- 
sent are  still  there,  but  they  are  no  longer  seen  by  us 
as  a  whole,  but  as  parts  of  a  greater  whole.  We  have 
gained  new  positions  for  observing  them.  Our  know- 
ledge of  science,  of  the  history  of  our  race,  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  of  the  evolution  of  life  in  it,  has  carried 
us  to  a  height  which  has  changed  our  landscape  for  us. 
The  creeds  become  now  part  of  a  vaster  view  of  life, 
a  view  which  comprehends  them,  and  at  the  same 
times  stretches  beyond  them  ;  a  view  which  recognises 
their  fullest  value,  but  interprets  them  in  a  new  way 
and  on  its  own  terms. 

The  doctrines  for  which  the  Reformers  contended, 
and  which  form  the  basis  of  the  Evangelic  faith  of 
to-day,  are,  if  under  new  names,  as  to  the  gist  of 
them  being  practically  reaffirmed  by  science ;  set 
forth  as  part  of  its  system  of  life.     We  may  say  that 

257  R 


Selections  from   Brierley 

science,  working  from  its  materials,  and  in  its  own  way, 
is  re-preaching  to  us  a  doctrine  of  predestination,  of 
human  corruption  and  inabihty,  of  election,  of  regenera- 
tion, of  Divine  grace. 

To  begin  with,  Evangelical  doctrine  declares  that 
man,  to  reach  his  true  self,  must  be  reborn,  born  from 
above.  To  this  science  says  yes  ;  and  adds  to  it  that 
man  has  already  been  born  several  times  over.  Religion 
says  the  elect  are  predestinated  to  become  saints. 
Science  says  that  man  was  first  of  all  predestinated 
to  become  man.  Has  it  occurred  to  us  that  to  be 
human  at  all,  even  in  the  worst  specimens  of  us,  is 
the  effect  of  an  election  which  has  been  working 
on  our  race  through  measureless  ages  ?  When  we 
watch  our  poor  relations  at  the  Zoological  Gardens — 
chimpanzees,  baboons  and  the  like — have  we  asked 
"  Why  are  we  not  they  ?  "  There  is  only  one  answer. 
It  was  because  a  Power  not  ourselves  chose  us  in  the 
beginning,  guided  our  way  up,  repressed  others,  in  a 
hundred  subtle  ways  made  our  calling  and  election  sure. 

The  Evangelic  faith  reaffirms  our  helplessness,  as 
of  ourselves,  to  become  good.  We  are  experts  at 
falling.  Adam  fell  in  his  garden  ;  we  fall  in  ours. 
That  is  not  a  legend  ;  it  is  a  universal  experience. 
If  we  are  to  get  up  and  go  on  it  will  be  by  aid  of  a 
Power  not  ourselves.  The  force  that  made  us  man, 
out  of  something  lower  than  man,  must  still  work  on 
us  if  there  is  to  be  a  better  man.  All  the  religions 
affirm  it,  and  that  because  all  experience  affirms  it. 
You  can  never  set  a  man  on  his  feet  without  some  higher 
help.  Take  a  slum  district.  Imagine  it  as  composed 
entirely  of  degraded  people.  Segregate  that  district. 
Shut  it  off  from  all  contact  with  higher  types,  with  all 

258 


Science,    Art  and   Religion 

the  higher  influences.  What  would  be  its  history,  its 
chances  ?  So  sure  are  we  on  that  point,  that  our 
first  thought  for  its  improvement  would  be  the  impor- 
tation of  remedial  forces,  the  working  there  of  good 
people,  the  changing  of  its  conditions,  the  pouring  in 
of  spiritual  influence.  The  low  must  be  lifted  from 
above. 

The  old  dogmas  were  the  attempts  of  the  men  of 
that  time  to  account  for  the  facts  on  the  data  they 
possessed.  Their  account  of  predestination,  of  election, 
of  man  as  being  saved,  not  by  works,  but  by  grace, 
of  being  nothing  in  himself,  and  everything  by  means 
of  what  is  higher  than  himself,  was  a  badly-phrased 
and  a  badly-limited  account.  But  the  facts  are  there 
— made  luminous  in  the  light  of  science.  Its  retro- 
spect and  its  forecast  show  us  man  as  from  the  beginning 
the  subject  of  an  eternal  purpose,  held  in  the  grip  of 
a  Love  that  will  not  let  him  go.  It  shows  us  him  as  being 
perpetually  made  and  remade  by  a  spiritual  power 
incessantly  at  work  ;  a  Power  showing  itself  in  the 
field  of  history,  now  in  the  form  of  great  Divinely- 
endowed  personalities,  again  in  streams  of  influence 
that  flood  the  world  with  new  aspirations,  new  enthu- 
siasms ;  a  Power  whose  work  in  the  past  is  the  promise 
and  the  presage,  for  the  soul  of  man  and  for  the  world 
he  lives  in,  of  ever  Diviner  manifestations. 

SCIENCE  AS  INTERPRETER  OF  CHRIST 

Christianity  neither  gives  us  nor  was  intended  to 
give  us  a  certainty  that  can  be  proved  at  all  points 
to  the  intellect.  The  cosmic  scheme  under  which  we 
live  does  not  contemplate  at  any  point  an  intellectual 

259  R2 


Selections  from  Brierley 

salvation.  For  ages  men  lived  by  the  sun's  light  and 
heat  without  any  proper  conception  of  what  the  sun  was. 
To-day,  indeed,  we  are  still  at  guesswork  in  the  matter. 
But  the  sun  shines,  and  man  lives  thereby.  And  in 
like  manner,  imperfectly  translated  to  the  reason, 
given  to  us  througli  a  thousand  distorted  images, 
shining  into  all  manner  of  varying  mental  atmospheres, 
His  word  twisted  continually  by  variations  of  languages, 
by  the  presuppositions  fixed  in  human  brains,  the 
Christ  has  through  all  gone  on  shining  upon  our  race, 
and  ever,  where  men  have  failed  mentally  to  grasp  the 
mystery,  they  have  nevertiieless  felt  the  warmth  and 
the  light.  It  is  by  the  heart  more  than  by  the  head 
that  men  have  known  Jesus.  The  greatest  interpreter 
of  Him  is  human  life  itself.  The  deed  we  perform, 
the  event  that  meets  us  on  life's  way,  the  sorrow  we 
endure,  the  inner  struggle  of  the  mind — these  are  the 
things  that  open  to  us  one  by  one  the  doorways  to 
this  Treasure-House  of  the  soul. 

And  still  the  interpretation  of  Christ  goes  on.  The 
mountain  has,  as  yet,  only  begun  to  be  explored. 
Theology  has  tried  its  best  and  succeeded  only  in- 
different well.  As  the  human  capacity  widens  new 
measuring  Hues  will  be  brought  and  greater  results 
obtained.  The  scientist  is  to-day,  in  this  matter, 
in  a  negative  mood,  but  man  never  did  and  never  can 
live  by  negations,  and  science  will  come  by-and-by 
to  a  new  temper.  Some  of  the  greatest  spiritual 
testimonies  are  already  from  this  side.  What,  in  the 
humility  of  devotion,  can  surpass  the  inscription  on 
the  grave  of  Copernicus  !  "  Not  that  grace  which 
Paul  received  crave  I,  not  that  favour  with 
which  Thou  didst  pardon  Peter  ;    that  which  Thou 

260 


Science,   Art  and   Religion 

didst  grant  the  malefactor,  that  alone  crave  I."  And 
where  have  we  a  more  heart-felt  breathing  of  disciple- 
ship  than  in  the  hymn  of  Leibnitz  : 

"  Jesu,  dessen  Tod  und  Leiden 
Uns're  Freud'  und  Leben  ist !  " 

The  science  of  to-morrow,  with  a  deeper  apprehen- 
sion of  the  soul's  mystery  and  need  than  it  now  pos- 
sesses, will  regain  that  note,  with  something  added  of 
its  own.  With  a  mightier  sweep  of  vision,  it  will  be 
the  great  interpreter  of  Christ. 

MEDICINE  AND  RELIGION 

In  modern  civilisation  the  clergyman  and  the  doctor 
stand  at  such  a  distance  apart  that  it  is  almost  difficult 
for  us  to  realise  that  originally  they  were  one  and  the 
same  person.  Yet  there  was  a  time  when  medicine — 
the  whole  business  of  healing — was  a  purely  ecclesias- 
tical function.  It  has  been  by  a  very  long  process, 
in  accordance  with  that  law  of  specialisation  of  function 
the  working  of  which  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  so 
laboriously  deHneated,  that  the  medicinal  art  has, 
amongst  civiHsed  peoples,  gained  the  distinctive  place 
of  which  we  find  it  in  possession  to-day.  Resting  on 
a  broad  basis  of  accurate  knowledge,  master  of  a 
thousand  secrets,  its  history  crowded  with  glorious 
victories  in  the  campaign  against  disease  and  pain, 
and  with  foremost  names,  witli  intellect  and  worth 
everywhere  devoted  to  its  interests,  the  medical 
profession  has  reached  a  kind  of  apotheosis  in  modern 
life.  To-day  the  personnel,  the  standing  and  the 
achievements  of  the  medical  profession  represent  one 
of  the  most  valuable  assets  of  civilisation. 

261 


Selections  from  Brierley 

It  is  precisely  on  this  account  that  the  question 
becomes  so  interesting  as  to  the  precise  present-day 
relations  between  medicine  and  religion.  One  of  our 
reasons  for  writing  on  the  subject  is  the  feeling  that, 
in  more  than  one  direction,  they  might  be  improved. 
There  is,  for  one  thing,  an  impression  abroad  that  the 
bent  of  the  physiological  mind  is  toward  materiahsm. 
The  old  saying,  "tres  medici  duo  athei,"  is  still  quoted. 
Some  of  the  strongest  attacks  against  religious  ortho- 
doxy have  come  from  the  medical  and  physiological 
side.  It  is  also,  in  this  connection,  a  curious  coinci- 
dence that  the  starter  of  the  modern  denial  of  the 
Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  should  have  been 
a  physician — the  Frenchman,  Jean  Astruc. 

The  question  here  is  not  that  of  their  personal 
attitude  towards  this  or  that  theological  dogma  ;  it 
is  whether  the  comparatively  small  attention  paid  by 
some  members  of  the  faculty  to  the  spiritual  side  of 
human  hfc  does  not,  in  some  most  important  particulars, 
hinder  and  mar  their  professional  work  ?  The  healings 
wrought  by  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  the  cures  to  which 
Irenaeus  bears  testimony  in  the  second  century,  the 
marvellous  physical  results  of  the  preaching  of  Bernard, 
the  raising  of  Melancthon  from  what  seemed  immediate 
death  at  the  prayer  of  Luther,  are  parts  of  an  immense 
tradition  which  testifies  to  the  existence  of  secret 
spiritual  energies,  potent  against  disease  and  for  the 
furtherance  of  life,  which  under  certain  conditions  are 
at  the  disposition  of  humanity,  and  which  it  behoves 
the  men  responsible  in  these  departments  most  carefully 
to  study. 

The  best  men  of  the  profession  recognise  growingly, 
we  believe,  the  immense  moral  responsibilities  attach- 

262 


Science,  Art  and  Religion 

ing  to  it,  and  the  grave  questions  which  hang  thereon. 
Their  position  brings  them  continually  into  contact 
with  life's  ultimate  problems.  They  stand  between 
the  young  man  and  his  vices.  They  see  humanity  in 
its  defeats,  its  exhaustions,  its  despairs.  And  their 
entree  is  to  every  class.  They  are  called  in  where  the 
clergy  are  excluded.  In  their  parish  there  are  practi- 
cally no  dissenters. 

To  a  man  of  the  nobler  instincts  the  appeal  of  this 
helplessness  and  despair  should  be  irresistible.  But 
what  has  he  to  meet  it  with  ?  In  nine  cases  out  of 
ten  physical  alleviation  is  the  smallest  part  of  what  a 
sufferer  needs.  The  thing  he  wants  above  all  is  hope 
and  courage.  But  where  is  our  practitioner  to  find 
this  ;  where  is  he  to  gain  power  to  stiffen  the  moral 
backbone  of  tempted  youth  ;  or  to  cheer  the  lonely 
invalid  to  whom  the  days  are  a  weariness  and  the 
nights  a  horror  ;  to  help  men  gain  the  supreme  moral 
victory  over  suffering  and  over  death  ?  One  must 
put  it  bluntly ;  he  cannot  be  a  good  doctor  who  is 
not  fundamentally  a  good  man.  Emphatically  is 
it  true  for  his  work  that  "  one  man  with  a  belief  is 
worth  ten  men  with  only  interests."  What  we  are 
here  saying  has  nothing  to  do  with  sectarianism ; 
still  less  with  that  professional  religionism  which  is 
the  most  detestable  of  all  poses.  It  is  simply  the 
assertion  of  certain  fundamental  truths  that  have  been 
lacking  in  some  medical  curriculums,  and  of  which, 
in  conclusion,  we  may  give  this  as  the  sum  :  IMedical 
science  is  ultimately  a  branch  of  spiritual  science  ; 
bodily  healing  requires  a  knowledge  of  psychic  as  weU 
as  of  physical  conditions  ;  and  finally,  the  medical 
ministry  to  a  diseased  and  broken  humanity  can  never 

263 


Selections  from  Brierley 

be  adequate  unless  carried  on  as  a  mediation  of  the 
Eternal  Goodness  and  Love. 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  STARS 

There  is  immense  spiritual  inspiration  in  the  message 
of  the  telescope,  that  life  altogether  is  larger  than  our 
fathers  imagined.  For  the  idea  grows  upon  us  that  if 
the  material  realm  of  which  we  form  a  part  is  so  much 
vaster  than  we  deemed,  so  in  like  manner  must  be 
that  spiritual  realm  to  which  we  also  belong.  That  our 
poets  and  philosophers  should  sing  and  write  as  though 
creation's  greatness  spells  man's  littleness  is,  when  one 
thinks  of  it,  the  oddest  perversion.  It  supposes  that 
we  are  dwarfed  by  the  immensity  of  the  whole,  whereas 
it  is  this  very  vastness,  properly  considered,  that 
enliances  the  worth  of  our  own  life.  For  we  are  not 
only  in  the  universe,  but  the  universe  is  in  us.  It 
plays  through  us,  finding  in  the  soul  the  organ  of  its 
consciousness.  The  greater  the  whole,  the  mightier 
the  throb  of  its  pulsation  through  us  who  are  its 
parts. 

More  than  that .  The  greater  the  universe  the  greater 
its  Maker.  The  dimensions  of  the  one  helps  us  to 
conceive  the  proportions  of  the  other.  But  in  a  great 
nature  it  is  ever  the  moral  quality  that  counts  most. 
If  God  in  these  later  ages  has  astonished  us  by  the 
revelations  of  His  material  side,  what  surprises  may 
He  not  have  in  store  on  the  side  that  is  spiritual  ? 

But  the  most  important  message  of  the  stars  is 
that  of  the  absolute  spirituality  of  true  religion.  The 
widening  of  the  outer  heavens  is  the  cosmic  emphasis 

264 


Science,  Art  and  Religion 

upon  the  word  of  Jesus  :  "  Neither  shall  ye  say,  Lo 
here  !  or,  lo  there  !  for,  behold,  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  within  you."  Astronomy  puts  the  veto  on  external 
pilgrimings,  as  aids  to  religion.  We  might  journey 
from  here  to  Arcturus  and  be  no  whit  nearer  God. 
The  movement  needed  is  of  another  kind,  in  another 
sphere.  Religion's  "  above  "  and  "  beneath  "  have 
nothing  to  do  with  location.  They  are  states  of  the 
heart.  To  get  on  here  we  need  not  to  change  our 
place  but  our  ways.  We  reach  heaven  not  through 
the  clouds  but  through  our  own  souls.  It  comes  into 
us,  and  we  come  into  it,  in  proportion  to  the  stages  we 
make  in  faith,  in  love,  in  humility  of  spirit.  As  we 
move  along  this  line  of  things  what  we  are  chiefly 
conscious  of  is  not  so  much  the  roomier  realm  of  the 
stars,  majestic  though  that  be,  as  the  roomier  realm 
of  the  soul.  How  the  two  are  exactly  related  does 
not  yet  appear.  Enough  if  we  realise  that  the  incon- 
ceivable vastness  of  the  one  stands  over  against  the 
inconceivable  vastness  of  the  other.  Citizens  of  a 
boundless  physical  universe,  let  us  rejoice  most  in 
our  fellowship  in  that  spiritual  kingdom  whose  treasures 
an  inspired  voice  has  thus  described  :  "  Eye  hath  not 
seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  have  entered  into  the  heart 
of  man,  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for  them 
that  love  Him." 

HEREDITY  AND  CHARACTER 

The  extent  to  which  the  religious  thinking  of  the  day 
is  being  influenced  by  science  is  shown,  amongst  other 
things,  by  the  attention  bestowed  by  religious  as  well 
as  by  scientific  teachers  on  the  subject  of  heredity  as 

265 


Selections  from   Brierley 

related  to  character.  The  age-long  controversies 
between  fatalism  and  free-will  have  in  our  day  reap- 
peared under  new  aspects.  The  predestination  of  an 
Augustine  and  an  Edwards,  founded  upon  meta- 
physical and  theological  grounds,  has  been  transformed 
into  the  doctrine  of  a  Galton,  a  Lombroso,  and  a  Weis- 
mann,  which  fixes  the  destiny  of  the  human  subject  by 
the  inherited  character  of  the  germ-cell  from  which  he 
has  sprung.  It  is  true  that  on  crucial  points  of  the 
problem  the  experts  are  still  at  open  war.  But  in  spite 
of  differences  it  is  undeniable  that  the  trend  of  a  large 
volume  of  modern  scientific  thought  has  been  in  the 
direction  of  determinism.  A  man's  character,  it  is 
held,  is  inevitably  the  outcome  of  his  past  ancestry. 

What  has  religion  to  say  on  these  subjects  ?  To 
begin  with,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  Bible  is  full  of 
the  doctrine  of  here(hty.  Whatever  view  we  may 
take  of  the  Fall,  it  holds  as  a  declaration  of  the  unbroken 
sequence  in  cause  and  effect  between  the  latest  genera- 
tions and  the  earliest.  The  Old  Testament  doctrine, 
that  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited  upon  the  children 
to  the  third  and  fourth  generation,  is  to  the  same  effect. 
But  the  Bible,  while  admitting  and  affirming  the  soli- 
darity of  the  race  and  the  large  extent  to  which  a  man's 
destiny  is  shaped  for  him  before  his  birth,  is  at  direct 
issue  with  the  materialistic  fatahsm  which  would  rid 
the  individual  of  moral  responsibility. 

What  religion,  in  fact,  contends  for  is  that  the  human 
ego,  within  a  certain  limited  area — an  area  conditioned 
by  the  facts  of  heredity  and  the  existing  environment — 
is  a  fount  of  creative  power.  Surrounded  by  competing 
and  often  opposing  currents  of  influence,  which  beat 
upon   it   from   both    the   material   and   the   spiritual 

266 


Science,  Art  and  Religion 

world,  it  has  the  faculty  ot  choosing  which  of  these 
it  shall  yield  itself  to.  The  immense  changes  that  come 
over  men  as  the  result  of  the  differing  influences 
under  which  from  time  to  time  they  place  themselves, 
show  that  our  characters  are  not  ready-made  and  irre- 
versible, but  are  every  day  in  the  making.  The  view 
of  life,  in  fact,  which  accords  most  closely  with  Scrip- 
ture, with  the  facts  of  experience,  and  with  our  deepest 
moral  intuitions,  is  that  which  regards  it  as  an  inheri- 
tance which  we  are  to  deal  with  as  we  will.  We  have 
not  made  the  inheritance.  It  comes  down  to  us  from 
the  far  past,  carrying  with  it  all  manner  of  burdens, 
limitations,  mortgages  and  what  not,  the  result  of 
the  good  or  bad  stewardship  of  those  who  held  it 
before  us.  For  these  limitations  we  are  not  answer- 
able. What  we  are  responsible  for  is,  when  once  in 
possession,  to  do  the  best  with  what  there  is.  That  the 
estate  may  have  been  impoverished  by  a  spendthrift 
ancestor  does  not  absolve  us  from  the  obligation  of 
personal  thrift.  The  more  does  that  lie  upon  us,  in 
order  to  improve  what  is  left  and  hand  it  on  in  improved 
conditions  to  the  next  heir.  And  the  man  who  seeks 
to  do  this  will  find  in  Christ's  Gospel  a  store  of  vital 
energy  which  will  make  him  master  of  his  fate. 

NATURE  AS  PREACHER 

There  are  preachers  who  spring  into  prominence  at  a 
bound  ;  others  take  long  in  maturing.  We  propose 
here  to  speak  of  a  preacher  of  this  latter  order  ;  one 
who  has  been  long  in  the  world,  but  who  nevertheless 
may  be  said  to  have  only  lately  "  arrived."  The 
preacher  is  Nature.     Only  lately  arrived,  we  say,  for 

267 


Selections  from  Brierley 

it  is  within  the  last  generation  or  two  that  people  have 
begun  to  wake  to  the  proper  sense  and  feehng  of  the 
message.  For  long  centuries  men  have  been  clamouring 
in  the  name  of  their  various  dogmatisms,  and  thereby 
drowning  effectually  the  utterance  of  this  finer  voice. 

Is  it  not  a  remarkable  thing  that  in  the  whole  of  the 
New  Testament  there  is  only  one  voice  that  seems  to 
recognise  the  world's  beauty  ?  St.  Paul  travels  through 
the  most  magnificent  scenery.  He  crosses  the  ^Egean, 
he  traverses  the  Taurus  mountains,  he  looks  upon 
"  the  isles  of  Greece,"  but  there  is  no  hint  in  his  letters 
that  he  had  even  noticed  them.  It  was  left  to  his 
Master  to  read  Nature.  To  Him  her  voice  was  Divine. 
The  sun,  the  flower,  the  bird  of  the  air,  were  symbolic, 
sacramental.  He  delighted  in  her  beauty  as  one  who 
read  her  secret. 

Theology  has  in  this  matter  followed  more  in  the 
footsteps  of  Paul  than  of  Jesus.  Ecclesiasticism  as 
a  rule  has  turned  a  bhnd  eye  and  a  deaf  ear  to  our 
preacher,  and  tauglit  the  world  to  do  the  same.  This 
indifference  of  the  past  to  what  is  our  greatest  inspira- 
tion is  indeed  difficult  to  understand. 

But  to-day  we  have  reached,  to  a  degree  not  dreamed 
of  by  our  ancestors,  what  may  be  called  the  cosmic 
consciousness.  Nature  has  become,  as  never  before, 
a  preacher  to  us,  the  most  formidable  rival  to  all  other 
preachers.  These  last,  indeed,  need,  above  all  things, 
to  get  instruction  in  her  school.  Her  "  Lessons  on 
Preaching  "  are  the  best  extant.  This  orator  has 
something  for  every  capacity  ;  her  word  for  the  little 
child,  her  problem  for  the  deepest  mind.  She  clothes 
her  truth  in  beauty,  she  adorns  it  with  infinite  illus- 
tration.    Robert    Hall    used    to    read    everything    in 

268 


Science,  Art  and   Religion 

order  that,  on  the  topics  handled,  he  might  always  be 
ahead  of  his  hearers.  Nature  is  always  ahead  of  her 
hearers.  Behind  her  baldest  commonplaces  are  depths 
of  meaning  which  no  plummet  can  sound.  This 
is  the  teacher  that  never  tires  her  audience.  Every 
day  she  has  something  fresh.  What  holds  us  to  her 
is  her  infinite  suggestiveness. 

For  one  thing  she  has  taught  us  that  life  is  funda- 
mentally, divinely  simple,  and  yet  the  most  complicated 
business  in  the  world.  Simple,  so  that  little  children 
and  ignorant  races  that  have  never  read  books  have, 
generation  after  generation,  drunk  her  draught  and 
found  no  hurt.  And  yet  the  infinite  complexity ! 
For  as  our  mind  opens  we  find  life  to  have  in  it  a 
million  things,  each  one  related  to  ourselves,  each  one 
with  its  own  laws,  laws  which  we  must  learn  and  obey 
if  we  would  get  life's  blessing,  and  not  its  curse.  Life, 
we  find,  is,  from  beginning  to  end,  cause  and  effect, 
seed-sowing  and  harvest,  the  harvest  being  according 
to  the  seed.  No  pulpit  thunder  has  ever  declaimed 
this  truth  with  an  impressiveness  equal  to  that  of 
Nature  as  interpreted  by  science. 

But  Nature  has  a  doctrine  not  only  of  law  but  also 
of  grace.  Her  punishments,  her  retributions,  are 
severe,  but  they  are  never  final,  never  hopeless  for  the 
criminal.  Here  her  doctrine  runs  counter  to  some  of 
our  earlier  theology.  We  know  now  that  there  is, 
in  Nature  at  least,  no  irremediable  ruin.  For  there 
is  no  ending  that  is  more  than  a  new  beginning.  The 
uttermost  clash  of  worlds  were  only  a  fresh  start  of 
her  combinations  and  her  energies.  She  is  exhaust- 
less  in  her  patience  as  healer  ;  and  her  very  ruins  are 
consolations.     Has  this  no  bearing  on  the  ultimate 

269 


Selections  from  Brierley 

human  fate  ?  We  pity  the  man  who  can  study  this 
aspect  of  things  without  seeing  the  meaning  of  the 
parable. 

OUR  INHERITANCE  IN  THE  INVISIBLE 

Science  and  philosophy  run  after  Monism  to-day, 
but  the  signs  are  that  when  all  is  done  they  will  end  in 
Dualism.  The  signs  are.  that  is,  of  an  external 
universe  which  is  not  perfected,  but  on  the  way  to 
perfection.  Which  in  its  turn  means  a  Perfect  of 
Being  and  Reality  that  is  behind  and  beyond  the  visible 
universe,  greater  than  it,  and  which,  in  its  constant 
self-disclosures,  brings  ever  the  cosmos  closer  to  its 
own  height  and  beauty.  Why  should  we  think  of  the 
universe  other  than  as  we  think  of  ourselves  ?  Why 
should  we  not  say  that,  just  as  the  soul  in  us  is  in  a 
way  a  mirror  of  the  Deity,  but  an  imperfect  one  ; 
and  that  in  proportion  as  the  soul  grows,  in  that  degree 
the  Divinity  is  more  clearly  revealed  ;  so  this  external 
frame  of  things  is  just  a  vehicle  for  the  self-disclosure 
of  God,  and  will,  in  its  infinite  progression,  open  to  us 
ever  more  of  the  inexhaustible  riches  of  His  perfection  ? 

It  is  to  some  such  point  as  this  that  the  higher 
science  and  the  higher  philosophy  of  to-day  are  steadily 
moving.  And  the  lesson  from  it  is  that  which  religion 
has  taught  from  the  beginning,  the  lesson,  namely, 
of  our  inheritance  in  the  Invisible,  of  our  permanent 
home  and  treasure  there.  What  is  seen  has  all  come 
out  of  the  unseen,  is  a  sort  of  deposit  from  it,  and  there 
is  an  infinity  more  to  follow. 

But  our  share  is  in  the  fountain  as  well  as  in  the 
stream.     We  are  not  of  the  visible  only  ;    our  inmost 

270 


Science,  Art  and   Religion 

texture    is   of   the    invisible,  and  we  partake    of   its 

eternity. 

"  Kein  Wesen  kann  zu  nichts  zerfallen. 
Das  Ewige  regt  sich  fort  in  alien." 

"  No  being  can  to  nothing  fall,  in  everything  the 
Eternal  moves."  So  sings  the  German  prophet.  But 
we  can  go  further.  Science  and  philosophy  take  us 
to  the  threshold  ;  the  Christian  Gospel  introduces  us 
to  the  presence  chamber.  These  suggest  a  power,  a 
wisdom,  greater  than  all  we  see  ;  this  tells  us  of  a  love 
that  passeth  knowledge.  Spinoza  offers  us  the  amor 
intellectualis  Dei  :  Jesus  shows  us  the  heart  of  the 
Father,  and  that,  and  that  alone,  suffices  us. 

RELIGION  AND  ART 

A  feature  eternally  associated  with  the  eternal 
religion  is  its  expression  in  art.  The  artist,  qua 
artist,  is  religious.  He  may  do  nothing  but  genre 
pictures,  landscapes,  flower  and  fruit  pieces,  portraits, 
with  never  a  suggestion  of  so-called  sacred  history  or 
symbolism.  But  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  genuine  painter, 
his  work  is,  we  say,  religious,  for  its  success  from  first 
to  last  lies  in  its  conformity  to  a  law  which  is  Divine. 

How  comes  it,  then,  that  in  the  times  and  among  the 
peoples  where  the  religious  sentiment  has  been  at 
its  highest,  the  feeling  and  the  production  of  art  have 
been  at  the  lowest  ;  and  that,  contrariwise,  the  periods 
of  the  greatest  artistic  splendour  have  been  marked  so 
often  by  the  utmost  depravation  of  morals  and  religion  ? 
The  first  Christian  generation  had  its  apostles,  its 
prophets,  its  teachers,  its  martyrs,  but  not  its  artists. 
So  barren  was  it  in  this  direction  that  we  have  no 

271 


Selections  from   Brierley 

authentic  portrait  of  Christ.  Puritanism  and  early 
Methodism  seem  only  to  have  repeated  this  story. 
The  Scotch  Presbyterians  and  the  Cromwellian  Iron- 
sides would  have  none  of  an  artistic  religion.  The 
early  Methodists,  "  filled  with  the  Spirit,"  saw  no 
connection  between  their  vocation  as  saints  and  that 
of  the  painter  and  sculptor.  They  turned  from  an 
ornamental  worship  to  the  barest  simplicity.  And  on 
the  opposite  side  there  is  this  other  puzzle  :  that  the 
periods  of  highest  art  have  been  again  and  again 
those  of  moral  and  religious  decadence.  The  standing 
illustration  here  is,  of  course,  the  Renaissance. 

What,  then,  is  the  true  relation  between  art  and 
religion  ?  Does  high  religion  banish  art,  or  high  art 
banish  religion  ?  Or  is  the  history  a  mere  jumble  of 
opposites  with  no  uniting  principle  beneath  it  ?  We 
believe  in  neither  of  these  propositions.  Religion  and 
beauty  are  twin  sisters,  but  they  seem  to  have  been 
put  out  to  different  nurses,  and  in  their  after  career 
to  have  travelled  so  far  afield  as  hardly  at  first  sight  to 
be  able  to  recognise  each  other.  Christianity  came 
to  us  through  the  Hebrew  race,  and  artistic  culture  was 
not  in  its  department.  The  Greek  here  had  a  mission 
denied  to  the  Jew,  Each  had  something  from  God 
without  which  the  other,  and  humanity  at  large, 
would  not  be  complete. 

The  history,  rightly  read,  shows  really  no  contra- 
diction. Art,  instead  of  being  opposed  to  religion,  is 
one  of  its  inevitable  products.  Its  full  development 
is  only  a  question  of  time.  The  early  Christian,  the 
Puritan,  the  Methodist,  had  the  whole  thing  within 
them  for  which  the  highest  art  strives.  It  was  only 
that  they  had  not  the  means,  nor  the  development 

272 


Science,  Art  and  Religion 

required,  to  put  it  all  into  form.  That  external 
beauty  which  they  eschewed,  as  inferior  to  this  inner 
loveHness,  and  as  allied  so  often  with  moral  rottenness, 
they  yet  believed  in. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  present  day  to  bring  these 
great  Hfe  factors  into  a  yet  more  visible  harmony. 
Art  and  religion  will  reach  their  true  unity  when  man, 
radiant  in  his  spiritual  perfection,  shall  look  out  upon 
a  Paradise  world  which  reflects  that  inner  splendour. 

RECOGNITION  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL 

The  recognition  of  beauty  by  the  mind  can  be 
explained  satisfactorily  in  only  one  way.  The  term 
we  have  just  used  is  in  itself  the  key.  Our  feeling 
here  is  a  re?-cognition,  that  is  a  re-knowing,  a 
reminder  of  what  the  soul  already  knows,  of  what 
is  native  to  its  realm.  Schelling  is  on  the  track 
of  all  this  when  he  treats  of  the  external  world  as 
another  expression  of  the  same  eternal  Life  that 
finds  itself  in  our  consciousness.  The  beauty  of 
Nature  is  the  work  of  a  supreme  Artist  whose  funda- 
mental ideas  are  reproduced,  however  faintly,  in  our 
own.  Without  such  a  relationship  to  begin  with  there 
could  be  no  possible  recognition  of  beauty  on  our 
part.  A  painter  who  exhibited  his  picture  would  be 
astonished  to  learn  that  the  pubHc  were  admiring  it  on 
the  strength  of  ideas  entirely  foreign  to  any  he  had 
himself  put  into  it.  The  very  basis  of  our  compre- 
hension, not  to  say  appreciation,  of  a  picture's  merit 
lies  in  the  fellowship  of  our  feehng  with  that  of  the 
artist.  And  the  law  which  obtains  in  the  Academy 
rules,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  through  all  the  worlds. 

273  S 


Selections  from  Brierley 

Another,  and  by  no  means  simple,  problem  comes  up 
when  wc  touch  the  relation  of  beauty  to  morality. 
Observation  appears  to  add  positive  reasons  against 
any  such  alliance.  The  sense  for  external  loveUness 
has  had  apparently  no  connection  with  high  moral 
character.  The  ages  in  which  it  has  been  most  con- 
spicuous, as  that  of  the  Greeks  under  Pericles,  and  of  the 
Renaissance  in  Italy,  were  conspicuous,  we  are  told, 
for  their  dissoluteness.  The  artist  world  has  been 
generally  a  Bohemian  world.  But  statements  of  this 
kind  need  to  be  taken  with  a  certain  reservation. 
As  to  the  Itahan  Renaissance,  let  us  remember  it 
produced  a  remarkable  literature  devoted  to  the 
idealisation  of  love  and  the  redemption  of  it  from 
the  grosser  elements.  Nor  were  all  its  artists  hbertines. 
It  produced  a  Michael  Angelo  as  well  as  a  Benvenuto 
CeUini.  No  man  in  these  later  ages  has  had  a  mind 
more  teeming  with  images  of  immortal  beauty  than 
our  own  Milton,  but  "  his  soul  was  hke  a  star  and  dwelt 
apart."  Our  own  times  have  seen  a  Wordsworth,  a 
Ruskin,  a  Tennyson,  natures  all  of  them  in  which  the 
sense  of  beauty  both  in  Nature  and  in  art  reached  its 
highest  expression,  and  all  of  whom  found  in  it  an 
immediate  ally  of  spiritual  perfection.  That  a  given 
musician  is  a  rake  is  no  evidence  that  the  laws  of 
music  which  he  obeys  are  not  Divine.  He  has  eyes 
only  for  a  piece  of  Heaven's  law,  not  its  wholeness. 
The  whole  argument  here,  in  fact,  seems  sunmied  in 
the  nature  of  Christ.  If  the  Gospels  speak  truly 
there  was  never  a  nature  that  thrilled  more  exquisitely 
to  the  world's  beauty.  Yet  never  nature  set  forth  so 
surely  God's  holiness. 

The  belief  in  beauty  is  part  of  our  belief  in  God. 

274 


Science,  Art  and  Religion 

The  Universe  strives  after  it  as  the  reahsation  of  His 
idea.  Ugliness  is  to  be  striven  against  as  a  frustra- 
tion of  Heaven's  plan.  Beauty  of  character  and  beauty 
of  form  are  essentially  allied,  and  should  be  striven 
for  as  elements  in  the  wholeness  of  Hfe.  Our  com- 
munal life  should  be  an  intimate,  harmonious  blend  of 
the  spiritual  and  the  material,  each  recognised  as  a 
portion  of  God's  hohness.  Their  true  union  will 
produce  a  social  structure  whose  enduring  splendour 
shall  be  a  reflex  of  the  holy  city,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem, 
which  John  saw  descending  out  of  heaven  from  God. 


BRADBURY,   AGNEW,    &   CO.    LD.,    PRINTERS,    LONDON    AND  TOiNBRIDCE. 


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